


I'll never soften my grip

by wobblyheadeddollcaper



Series: Grip and Hold [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Armor Kink, Body Dysphoria, Established Relationship, F/M, Light BDSM, M/M, PTSD, Pegging, Roleplay (Military), Unsafe breathplay, always-a-girl!Tony, cisgirl!Toni
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:37:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wobblyheadeddollcaper/pseuds/wobblyheadeddollcaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve finds his team, his body, and his increasingly complex relationship with Toni Stark threatened by forces outside his control. </p><p>"“Love, huh,” Fury says, a faint hint of derision in his voice as he stares at Toni.<br/>“Problem?” Toni asks aggressively, hackles up. “I'm happy to take my mansion and vast technical expertise to the next quasi-fascist US government agency.”"</p><p>(Hydra and spiders and mutants, oh my.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to claudiastar for her support, guidance and structural beta-work above and beyond the call. All remaining errors are mine.

There are a lot of things that survive his long sleep under the ice to greet Steve on his return to New York. The Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Opera house, Macey's. Steve's usually saddened and grateful to see the old reminders in new facepaint, but he would happily have lived out his life never even thinking the name 'Hydra' again. _Why couldn't they just goddamn die_ , he thinks grimly, throwing his shield at an angle that should take down the wicked-looking long gun they're priming. It doesn't because one of the Hydra soldiers jumps in front of it, taking the blow. Steve will never quite get used to the ant-like behaviour of Hydra, which he figures is a good thing because it's plain unnatural.

Banner's speaking through his earpiece. “I'm gonna get as close as I can and go green. Try to keep the big guy pointed the right way.”

“I got you, Bruce. Unleash the Kraken.” Toni's voice, and he hears the sound of her repulsors as she arcs overhead like a comet. Thank God, Hydra have eschewed the usual supervillain target of downtown Manhattan in favour of the Hackensack Meadowlands, out by the New Jersey Turnpike. The land is flat and treeless, with little ponds and rivulets everywhere that remind Steve of Arnhem back in '44. There's no cover for either side, and he's using his shield a lot.

Hulk rises above the grass like an ice-age mammoth, a perfect target, which would be okay if all they were facing was bullets. But for out of the knot of Hydra men and machines comes a searing beam of green light, lurid lime against the Hulk's green skin and it hits him square in the temple, making him bat a giant hand in irritation. The big gun-like Hydra weapon they've been protecting must be coming in to play, but it doesn't look like it's done much. Steve tenses, waiting for a second shot as Toni swoops in to strafe them, but they've stopped firing.

The Hulk isn't attacking. He's looking around, bellowing, and before Steve can jump up to point him at Hydra he runs away from the battle, past their lines and onto the goddamn road, leaving craters in the tarmac of the turnpike and scattering cars like a bull elephant in a china factory. The ground shakes with his anger and the air is filled with screams – New Yorkers may not fear the wrath of God, but they sure fear the anger of the Hulk. 

His radio erupts with staticky squawking. Steve doesn't bother to listen as he sprints after Hulk, cursing whatever idiot – probably in PR – decided they didn't need to close the road. 

Steve gets face to face with the Hulk, trying to calm him or at least get him off the road, but it's futile. There's no recognition in his eyes, none of the brutish humor that Steve's used to. Hulk is only pain, anger, lashing out at the whole too-loud world. Something's very wrong. Steve dodges, running into the grass to draw Hulk off the road. What follows is an agonising game of tag, constantly moving and trying to hide

Everything any of them tries to stop him or divert him just makes him angrier. They end up having a knock-down battle that destroys much of the Meadowlands, long after the Hydra unit is mopped up by Toni and Natasha. Clint and SHIELD try to clear out the road – God, Steve hopes they got in medical units in time, he's been too busy to look. He hits Hulk pretty hard with his shield, leaving him shaking his head like an injured dog, confused and troubled. Thor comes in with his hammer and they finally knock the Hulk out, leaving a small, fragile-looking Bruce Banner lying curled up in the grass and churned-up mud.

*

“Hey, Steve.” Toni walks in to his bedroom without knocking, shaking out her curly, black hair. It gets bundled up under the Iron Woman helmet a lot these days. Her thermal undersuit is thin enough that Steve can tell she's not wearing a bra today. 

“Bruce is okay. Exhausted and eating his weight in steak, probably going to sleep for a couple of days. No civilian casualties but a few in hospital, one kid badly injured. Stark Industries and SHIELD are covering the medical bills. Rest of the team is fine.”

Steve looks at her from where he's sitting slumped on his bed. She's smaller out of the armour, but you'd never know it by the way she walks into a room. The black undersuit has patches of salt crystals on it, from dried sweat. It's about six hours since Toni put on the suit, a long time to keep moving. Toni keeps swearing she's going to improve the heat conduction but it compromises hull integrity, or something. Steve is used to not understanding parts of what Toni says, but he knows how she feels about everything.

He stands up as she walks towards him, his arms coming up around her automatically. Steve's uniform is filthy with dust and sweat, maybe a little blood, so he leaves a little space between their bodies as they kiss, slowly and thoroughly, reminding each other that they are alive.

“Keep the uniform on,” Toni says between kisses, “I just have to-”

She sinks to her knees and starts working on his fly. Steve begins to run his fingers through her hair but stops – even with the gloves off, his hands are grimy, grit in tidemarks between his fingers.

“I must be stinking,” he half-laughs, embarrassed.

“No.” Toni licks his soft cock and yeah, that gets him hard, but Steve kinda wants a shower. He feels filthy, he must taste terrible.

“Toni-” He shifts his feet.

“Let me just-”

“Toni, stop.”

“Really?” she says, a low thrum of laughter in her voice. Her hand caresses his groin.

“Stop.” He takes a step away, and she sits back on her heels, looking baffled and a little offended.

“You don't want a blowjob? Everyone wants blowjobs, they're like the pepperoni pizza of sex acts.”

“I'm filthy.”

“And yet somehow I don't care. Doesn't look like your dick has any complaints either.”

“I do care. Look, let me shower before this conversation.” Steve sits down to start removing his boots.

“I wasn't really hoping for a conversation,” Toni grumbles.

“I really hurt Bruce today. I'm not in the mood.” He pulls his left boot off with a sharp tug.

“Oh. He's okay, you know.”

“Yes, but I... Can we - “ He gestures towards the bathroom.

“Sure, go shower. I'll be in my rooms, if- or I'll see you at breakfast if you- well, bye.”

“I didn't mean-” Steve says helplessly to her retreating back. Sometimes he really wishes he'd listened more to Bucky's advice about dames ('Outsider sees most of the game' Bucky says in his head, smiling wryly), but even Bucky probably never foresaw a woman like Toni Stark.

He showers, and she's asleep when he opens the door to her room. He closes it softly behind him but she wakes anyway, holding still for a moment before she recognises his footsteps.

“C'mere.” She flaps a hand at him, beckoning. He climbs in beside her. She's put on perfume, a thin scent like night-blooming flowers, so she must have been expecting him.

“Night, Toni.” He listens to her breathing slow beside him.

*

“Control,” Bruce says grimly. “Toni, what do you know about psychology?”

“Soft science. Can't think of much that applies. Hulk is you, Bruce, not Pavlov's dog- “

“I'm not him.” Bruce says, his voice quiet but canyon-deep, filled with rage. Steve shifts in his seat, adrenaline spiking. It feels a little like betraying Bruce, not to have Toni's fearlessness around him, but Steve's spent too long dodging the Hulk this week already.

“He has your memories. He recognises your friends – Bruce, please, just listen!” Toni pleads.

“Okay.” Bruce rubs his palms against his eyes.

“Hulk is under control, we've seen this, tested it dozens of times. We have to find out what Hydra shot you with. I will bet you half this mansion it had something to do with Hulk going apeshit.”

“It was obvious, Doc,” Steve puts in. “You were fine right up until you got hit in the head with this green light – like a laser, but fuzzier round the edges.”

“If you're wrong, I'm putting you all in danger.” Bruce folds his arms, looking stubborn. Toni throws up her hands.

“We're in danger without you. We're always in danger. Dr Banner, you'd better not be backing away from a research question. I'm pretty sure I can get one of your PhDs revoked.”

“I have heard Caltech are getting strict about scientific negligence.” Bruce's lips quirk up, unwillingly. “Are you... sure?”

“I am,” Steve says, “Hulk has saved us more times than I can count. We're not going to let anything happen to you.”

“The voice of America has spoken.” Toni leans back and spreads her hands, like she's just done a magic trick.

“SHIELD aren't going to like this incident,” Clint says, fingers twitching as though shaping an arrow out of the air. “I know you're not much for cages, Dr Banner. Might be safer for you to be off-grid.”

“We can take SHIELD,” Toni sneers regally.

“Any who would wrest Bruce from us must be foolhardy indeed,” Thor rumbles. Mjolnir gleams dully under the yellow lights.

“It won't come to that.” Steve steps in to stop the escalation before Toni and Thor start a pre-emptive attack. “Clint, Natasha, you're with me for negotiating SHIELD non-interference with Fury and the military. General Ross is going to be seething over this. Toni, Bruce, Thor, we need on-site containment for the Hulk – just as a bargaining chip, Bruce and Toni to retain control. Whip something up.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Toni throws a salute so sloppy it makes his teeth hurt.

“That cover everything?”

“I'll want access to SHIELD readings from the... attack,” Bruce says, polishing his glasses. “And, uh, thank you. I mean sorry. Both.”

“No hard feelings.”

“That's what she-” Steve puts his hand across Toni's mouth, trying not to laugh. 

“Stark, save the end of that sentence for later. Natasha, let's get out there. What do we know about Ross?” He walks out of the room, Clint and Natasha falling in behind him. 

“I'll get you the file,” Natasha says, scrolling down a matte black electronic book that's as thin as cardboard. “We should plan our approach for twenty minutes or less, then hit Fury before Ross gets to him.”

Ross, Steve learns, is a paranoid, vengeful guy who was a heartbeat away from being Bruce's father-in-law, which has to sting something bad for Bruce.

“How do we get Fury on our side?” Clint asks, flicking through the file after Steve hands Natasha's tablet screen over.

“I'm the good cop who just wants to protect the public and his team, you're the overprotective cop who wants Bruce unfettered – feel free to pass on Thor's threat – and Natasha's the voice of reason who proposes the mansion site Hulk unit.”

“You always play good cop,” Clint mock-grumbles.

“I've got the jaw for it,” Steve says, deadpan. He hasn't earned half the hero-worship he gets from some of the SHIELD agents, but he will use his image if he needs to.

“He's not going to fall for this,” Natasha states, eyebrow raised like she thinks he's being an idiot.

“He doesn't have to. It's more polite than a _fait accompli_ , though.”

*

That night Toni comes to his room again. Steve's relieved to see her – even with their relationship on a more stable footing, sometimes it's all too easy to imagine that Toni might simply stop coming round someday.

He's unprepared when she puts his hands at her throat and says “I'll tap out when I need to. Choke me.”

Steve pulls his hand back, almost falling out of bed. “I can't.” He can bend steel with his hands, he could never tighten them around Toni's neck. He doesn't even want to think about it.

“No? You don't have to, then. What do you want to do?”

“Why?... Do you _enjoy_ that?” He can't keep the disbelief out of his voice, and Toni must hear it as revulsion.

“Oh hey, look at the time.” She shrugs on a dressing gown, blocking the light of her reactor, and goes for the door. “See you later-”

“Stop. I didn't mean...”

“Yes you did. It's weird.”

“Do it to me, then. I want to understand.” She looks back at him then, her hand falling away from the door handle.

“Not necessary, really. We can do anything, I'm not...” Steve gets up and walks over to her, not bothering to cover himself up – Toni tends to get a little speechless when he's naked, which makes their arguments a lot shorter. He takes her hand and kisses it, draws her back to the bed, pulling her down on top of him. 

“It's okay,” he says between kisses, “Come back to me.”

“Oh, you don't fight fair,” Toni groans. “You look edible, you look like a wet dream.” She sheds the dressing gown, throwing it off the bed.

Steve takes her hand and puts it against his throat. Toni shudders.

“Oh damn. You sure?” Steve nods. She tightens her grip, something dark and hungry behind her eyes.

Toni's hands are surprisingly strong. He lets his hands lie along Toni's thighs, feeling the rasp of air down his constricted throat. It's a little like flying, and a little like falling, and nothing like being attacked. His muscles go loose and he leans forward into Toni's grip, chasing the pressure, his eyelids fluttering.

“Steve?” Her hand slackens against his throat.

“Yeah, fine, more.” She holds him a little while longer, maybe a minute, before Steve taps her thigh and she releases him. He's hard, he hadn't even noticed until Toni let go.

“I understand. I – Toni.” He flips her onto her back, rubbing the whole length of his body against her. The friction against his cock is so good he could cry.

“Oh hey, you liked that?” Toni sounds smug. Steve's going to allow it, because he's so hard he can barely think.

“Yes, fuck, Toni, please -”

“You want to fuck me?” Her voice is predatory in his ear. “I could choke you till you -”

He seals his mouth to hers, ripping her underwear off and rubbing a thumb roughly over her clit, wanting to warm her up, wanting to make her as desperate as she's making him. She's wet already – he rubs two knuckles against her folds, slicking her up.

“Now-” Toni wraps her legs around his hips and pulls him in, her thighs enfolding him. He's rarely been so attuned to Toni's body, the catches in her breathing, the way her hips come up to meet him as he eases inside her. She strokes her hand down his neck, a question, and he holds himself up one-handed as he wraps his hand around her own and presses it against his bared throat.

“Yes, do it-” He's cut off as her grip tightens. Her fingers are strong, short-nailed and calloused. As he thrusts into her the pressure of her hand tightens, then slacks off. He taps out after a couple of minutes, before he comes too soon.

Steve becomes aware that he's fucking Toni hard, more forceful than he usually lets himself be. He slows down, easing back.

“Don't you dare, come on, harder. I want to – ah – feel it tomorrow morning.”” 

“Like this?” He snaps his hips forward and she jerks convulsively, tightening up around his cock. “Toni, I'm – oh-”

“Me too, just-” He bites his lip, trying not to come as Toni's thighs tremble around him. Her back arches up and she gasps, her voice raw, her eyelashes fluttering, “Oh, yes, okay, come on, your turn.” Steve doesn't need to be told twice. His orgasm seems to last longer than usual, as far as he can tell through the haze of bliss clouding his mind.

*

“So... you liked that?”

“Yeah.” Steve's not entirely sure how to feel about the revelation.

“How do you feel about returning the favour?” Steve looks at Toni's throat, the faint blue of her blood under the thin skin there, and feels a wave of panic.

“Toni, I'm sorry, but I can't do that for you.” He sits on his hands. “I just – it makes me feel sick. What if I hurt you?”

“I don't think you would. I mean, you can handle eggs and hold a coke can without crushing it, you have control over your strength.”

“Call it early training,” he smiles wryly, getting his balance back. “I don't want to strangle a lady.”

“If you won't, you won't.” Toni fiddles with the corner of the sheet. “I can come up with something else.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

“You wanted it, though? When I... hurt you.” Toni says intently, as if trying to reassure herself.

“Yes. Could we, ah, could you do that again sometime?”

“Oh God, I broke you. You were all pristine and I got you dirty. I feel like I dumped oil in Yellowstone park or something.” She's trying to joke, but Steve can see the worry underneath.

“Toni, don't say that. If we both like it, it's not wrong.” He believes it, and can't understand why she shakes her head at him. “Stop treating me like virgin wilderness.”

He doesn't sleep too well, after. There's a little voice in the back of his head sneering at him. If he enjoys being choked, how can he fight off so many enemies who are only too happy to throttle the life out of him? Is he gonna start courting trouble out there, does he want to get his ass handed to him?

It's not like that, he thinks fiercely, but can't quite articulate why. He trusts Toni, it's not that kind of hurt. Sex isn't war and war isn't sex, he can tell the goddamn – the _fucking_ difference, thank you.

Toni murmurs in her sleep, lying warm, loose-limbed and doubting beside him.

*

The next time they meet Hydra Toni falls out of the sky. 

Steve's response is calm and professional. He keeps his head and sends a SHIELD team to retrieve Iron Woman from where she's crashed outside the main battle perimeter, rather than leaving the battle himself. He puts Thor and Hawkeye on perimeter in her place. He keeps fighting the Hydra goons until they get to whatever piece of tech they were guarding, and he contains the tech until SHIELD come to pick it up.

“Well, silver lining, at least we don't have to wrest it out of Toni's clutches,” Maria says lightly, and Steve is relieved, because she wouldn't make that joke if Toni was seriously hurt. Clint and Natasha both glower at her. Hill raises an eyebrow at them, completely unimpressed.

“How is Toni?” Steve asks. It's the first time Toni's been seriously hurt since she and Steve started going together. (Is he more anxious? Less? He can't tell.)

“Stark's in the medbay. Conscious, wrenched wrist, maybe some broken fingers.”

“That's not good.” Steve says, worried, and Natasha nods.

“Toni's not going to like it, that's for sure.”

“The height she was at, she's damn lucky that's all she took.” Maria says, grudgingly admiring. “Run along, hold her other hand. Tell her she can debrief when recovered.”

They get a few steps out of the door when Steve stops. He feels like a giant weight is on his chest. He can't quite breathe. It's happened before, back in the war. 

“Widow, area secure?”

“Secure, Captain. We can stand down.”

“Good.” Steve half runs along the corridor, looking for the next empty room – the interview room round the corner is empty and he runs into it, sits down on the floor in the corner furthest from the door, and shakes.

Natasha walks in after him, bolting the door behind her.

“You don't have to... I'll be fine. Thank you,” Steve says. “I'll bolt it once you're out.”

“Show me your hand.” Natasha counters, sitting in a vacant chair a few feet away. Steve lifts it, a wry smile on his face as he watches his fingers twitch and shiver.

“Never happens till afterwards,” he says. “That's good old American workmanship for you.” 

She snorts softly. “They don't make them like you any more.”

Steve laughs, then stops, biting down on the rising wave of hysteria, forcing himself to remember that flash of plummeting gold, that shout of fear strangled in his throat. “Two minutes, then we'd better find Toni.”

They sit in silence for two and a half minutes. Steve sighs and levers himself up.

“Thanks.” 

“You're welcome.” Natasha inclines her head gracefully.

Toni greets them with a steam of invective. Steve captures her unhurt hand while she's gesturing to make a point and squeezes. Toni squeezes back, and quiets down. He doesn't like how ashen her skin looks against the green medical unit sheets.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, except that damn Hydra beam weapon shorted out the reactor for a hot minute.”

“What.” Steve thinks he sounds pretty calm, but all the medical staff do something that in other circles might be called fleeing. This is SHIELD, so they call it an accelerated tactical retreat.

“I'm fine now, it was just-”

“Hill neglected to mention that.” Natasha peels wordlessly away from the back wall. Steve knows without looking that she's going to take it up with Maria and probably do a better job of reprimanding her than he would.

“Wow, you can do icy rage? How did I not know that? No, I'm fine now, magnet fully functioning.” She taps the glowing blue circle in her chest.

“Sorry. I would have liked to have known that.” He rests his hand next to her arc reactor, reassuring himself.

“No feeling me up in SHIELD medical,” Toni says lightly, but there's a warning in her eyes.

“Sorry.” Toni had been quite insistent that being with Steve was great, but that she would face problems if they didn't keep things professional in public. Peggy used to be that way too, never getting too close to him when anyone else could see them. Steve kinda wants to punch everyone who ever taught Toni that love was a weakness.

“Pictures up yet? Did SHIELD get to me before the paparazzi this time round?”

“How do you do that? You always try to control what people see of you, even when you're damn near dead.”

“Early training.” Toni smirks humorlessly. “Long training. I'm not the only one. Ever seen a red carpet show? The men are all in jeans and the women all in evening gowns. I have to do it all backwards in heels.”

“What? Oh, Ginger Rogers, right?”

“Yeah. Photos?”

“Not that I heard, but – Toni, you're not supposed to use your phone in here, there's a sign.”

“It's bullshit,” Toni says dismissively. “Oh goddamn them – fucking long lenses. Lemme call Pep – Pepper, my bad, Iron Woman got taken down, schedule me a photoshoot with that guy at Wired, you know, moustache guy. Yeah, smokescreen. Angel, you're too good to me, buy yourself a halo or two out of house funds. Love you.” She flicks her phone shut, her face drawn. 

“You know, there's this amazing ancient medical treatment for healing injuries faster, it's called 'bed rest'. Ever try it?”

“No. Although if you're in the bed with me, you could make sure I don't get up till, say, tomorrow morning.” She bats her eyelashes at him, and Steve thinks ruefully that he would rather have her well and happy than naked in his arms all night.

“What painkillers are you taking?”

“Vicodin, two before sleeping, one if I wake up at night.” She hands him the bottle.

Fury walks in.

“Good idea, Stark. Don't let her drink with those.” Fury tells Steve.

“Let me?” Toni says, brittle. “How about how you 'let' paparazzi on site before a medical squad. Perimeter security wasn't good enough to stop the fucking Daily Bugle getting through – it's sheer luck Hydra didn't get to me first.”

“Perimeter security will be disciplined. It's, ah, proving difficult to locate the breach.” Fury grits out, looking like he's rather pull his own teeth than admit it.

“Well, love to help but I have a public image to rebuild. Steve, gimme a hand?”

“You're staying in bed.” Steve says firmly. Toni glares at him. “Please? For me?” he tries.

“Fine.” Toni flops against the pillow theatrically, wincing on impact. “Ow.”

*

It becomes clear that minor incapacity suits Toni better than expected. Steve was anticipating at least a minor sulk when Toni couldn't weld or shower or drive herself with her busted hand, but she's pretty quiet about it. Steve offers to cut up her food, then to help her fix Dummy, and after that he doesn't need to offer again because Toni assumes he'll do whatever she asks. Steve's noticed it doesn't annoy him as much as he would have thought. More accurately, he kinda likes it. 

“Hey Steve, tie my shoelace.”

“Cut up my food.”

“Help me with my bra?”

They both get so used to it that Toni tells him in a team meeting to fasten her watch, and Bruce gives a little cough, an aborted comment.

“He's not your butler,” Fury says curtly.

“I don't mind,” Steve says. He buckles the watch, a complicated thing with more dials than can be useful. “It's easier than re-strapping her wrist every five minutes.”

Fury looks at them oddly, and Toni twitches. Steve meets his eyes and can tell that somehow, he just gave them away.

“I hope you two know what you're doing.”

“We do,” Steve says calmly. He takes Toni's unhurt hand – he'd rather brazen this out than try to lie.

“When this goes public-”

“I have a plan,” Toni informs him, then corrects herself. “We have a plan.” It's news to Steve, but he just squeezes her hand to let her know he'll be asking about that later.

“If it counts for anything,” Bruce says mildly, “They have our full support.”

“Natasha, Clint, you didn't see fit to report this?”

“It doesn't pose a threat to operational efficiency,” Natasha says, her voice so neutral it goes out the other side to near-insulting. “What would be the point?”

“Tasha, you soft-hearted romantic.” Toni bats her eyelashes at her.

“With all due respect, Colonel, it's not SHIELD business,” Steve says firmly. “I love Toni, and I won't change our relationship for any consideration.”

“Love, huh,” Fury says, a faint hint of derision in his voice as he stares at Toni.

“Problem?” Toni says aggressively, hackles up. “I'm happy to take my mansion and vast technical expertise to the next quasi-fascist US government agency.” 

“No problem, Stark.” Fury stares meditatively into the middle distance, then lets out a bark of laughter. “Hell, if this goes public, you have my support.”

*

“So, what is this plan you've been hiding? For when we go public.”

“There's some wiggle room depending on the 'how', but I'm thinking we go on Ellen asap and come clean. She'll play nice. Pepper knows Portia di Rossi, I think they go out for Mojitos every other month.”

“She's the one on the television, with the short blonde hair?”

“Yeah. I never said thank you,” Toni says abruptly, her voice stunned.

“For what?”

“For anything, for all the food and the wristwatch and – wow, that was bad even for me. I'll try not to boss you around any more. It was stupid of me -”

“I like it.” Steve blurts out.

“What?”

“I like it, I want you to do it.” He's capable of leading, he leads well, but it's good not to have to every single minute of every day. It's relaxing to occasionally be told what to do next, to be allowed to get Toni clean and keep her fed and happy.

“You're a sub – a submissive. I've tried both sides,” Toni tries to sound flippant, but Steve can hear the shock underneath it. “Just fucking around, it didn't push my buttons till – but you're Captain goddamn America. Since when do you take orders from anyone who's not president or, or God?”

“If you have a problem with ordering me around, don't expect me to bring it up for you.”

"Fuck you! – no, that's not what I wanted to –“ Toni makes a visible effort to calm down. “This is, for once, not about me. I want to know what you're thinking. You... seem pretty calm about it.” Toni's picking compulsively at the thumbnail of her bandaged hand, leaving the nailbed red and sore, but at least she's not running away.

“I feel calm,” Steve says slowly, not following.

"The point of this is not for you to practice your Zen detachment!" 

"Sehn?" How do you even spell that, Steve wonders. It's going to be tricky to google.

"You just - why aren't you freaking out?!" Steve leans over to still her hands. There's a bead of blood on her thumb.

"I've had bigger revelations. I doubled in size, went to war, my best friend died, I woke up in the future, fought aliens and fell in love.” Steve takes a breath. “And now I'm... submissive, or whatever you call it. I have nothing to prove, no bone to pick, I like what I like and I really, really do not care what anyone would think if they found out. Do you?"

"Yes. You would be mocked, you would be – I won't. I won't let you fuck yourself up like that."

"Then we'll keep it private. You set the pace. What do you want?"

"I can't take care of a house plant-"

"I'm not asking you to. I can take care of myself, I just want to know how to take care of you!"

"I don't need to be taken care of." There's a deep ocean of anger in Toni that Steve sees occasionally, hears now like thunder behind her words.

"Not - I can't protect you, I know that. I don't want to change you, not for the whole world. I just want to help you. And I don't know how sometimes, so if you could keep... telling me, I'd like that."

"I have to think. I – I enjoy it too. I've always been pushy, and it's intoxicating,” Toni takes a shuddering breath, “it's good, watching you follow my orders, but you can't trust me. I can't trust me."

"Take your time. I should - it goes without saying, but I won't obey you if it goes against my judgement. I'm sorry."

"That helps, actually."

Steve sits down and waits for Toni to think it through.

“Look, part of the problem is, the thing is, I don't want to do this in public. I mean, it's kinky, and it's part of us. Our friends don't want to see that. I'm not cool with involving them.”

“I... hadn't actually thought about it that way.” Steve has a sudden sensation of embarrassment, as if he's been walking around with his flies down.

“It wasn't that way for me before, but now that I know it's a kink for you, I'm not doing it in public. In private,” Toni takes a deep breath, “in private, I think we could take it further.”

“I, uh. If it would make you think less of me-” 

Toni cuts him off with a gesture. “The one thing you never have to worry about is defending your masculinity. I mean, look at you,” she says, half-admiring, half-despairing.

“The body's not the measure of a man.”

“Not your body. You.” 

 

*

Steve kneels on the floor beside her. He closes his eyes gratefully as she rests her hand on the nape of his neck.

“If you want it, ask me for it.” Her fingers curl at his hairline.

“Just for a night, tell me exactly what you want me to do. We can go back after, but just...” he rests his forehead on her thigh. “I could sure do with some orders right now.”

“How could I resist?” Toni says helplessly. She strokes his hair, fingers lingering as they pull through the strands.

“Come on, soldier. On your feet.” Steve bites his lip.

“Yes Ma'am.” 

Toni stops and looks at him, a speculative gleam in her eye. It's a look that has led to Steve jumping off the sides of buildings, or trying to spar in plate armour, or eating raw fish out of incredibly tiny bowls. When Toni has a plan in her mind, his pulse kicks up a notch reflexively.

“I like when you call me that. You like when I call you soldier, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“So... what if I were to give you orders. As a soldier. We could stop any time you decide to - any time you say stop.” Toni's hands are clenching and unclenching, touching each other because Toni won't touch him, not yet.

“I think I want that. Yeah.” Steve breathes, images blossoming behind his eyes. “I do. Is that strange?” Steve always, even before the war, wanted to be a soldier. The duty, the common cause, maybe even the uniform a little bit. To defend and to serve.

“It's really not. Uh, I could order you to shut up, to pleasure me, jerk yourself off... Could I tie you up?”

“Yes. Except I don't want to touch myself. I don't mind not coming-”

“Oh fuck, that would be hot. Yeah, okay, if you make me come a couple of times I'll, uh, reward you. And stop is your safeword, why not make it simple.”

“Safeword?”

“If you say stop, we go back to normal and talk about it, or whatever, until you're comfortable.”

“Same for you.”

“I'm giving the orders, I don't need a -”

“Humor me.”

“Okay, that's all.”

“Then... order away, Ma'am.” He feels ready, a little nervous.

“Stand up and give me your hands.” Steve holds his hands out, the rest of his body at parade rest. Toni's hung around with a lot of military types, which must where she gets that clipped voice from, that impersonal, brusque tone that Steve knows from a hundred recruiting reels and a few good men and women.

“Clean nails. Good enough, soldier. Take your shirt off.”

“Yes, Ma'am.” Steve strips efficiently, as he would for an army physical.

“You're mine for the night, soldier. What are you good for?”

“Ma'am, I-”

“Shut up.” Toni raises a hand to point at him. “From now on you only say 'Yes Ma'am', 'No Ma'am', 'Please' and 'Stop'. Clear?”

“Yes Ma'am.” Steve likes this. He can't say the wrong thing this way. It happens a lot that he asks the wrong question and makes everyone uncomfortable, when he can't use the google to check up on their references or recent history.

“Leave your pants on, just open your fly, show me what you're packing. Keep your dogtags on, no point breaking more regs than we have to.”

“Yes Ma'am.” Steve pictures Toni in uniform. Maybe she's a general who's called him into her quarters after hours. She's weighed down by command and needs – wants – needs a little R and R.

“Permission to speak, Ma'am?” He's deviating from the script, but Steve tests the boundaries to destruction if there's something he wants on the other side.

“Granted.” 

“Why me? You could have any soldier in the unit.”

“I chose you for this assignment, soldier. You're questioning a command decision. Drop and give me twenty and don't ask questions again.”

They both know Steve won't even feel twenty push-ups, it's a shadow-play of a punishment. He drops to the floor, and she puts her bare foot between his shoulder-blades.

“You're breaking the rules already. Lucky for you I don't have time to bring anyone else in to replace you.” She leans down, pressing her weight into his back as he completes his punishment. “You going to misbehave again?”

“No, Ma'am.”

“Then stand up and stay there – attention, soldier – till I need you.”

Toni is exhibitionist, either as a character trait or a lifelong mission. Steve's never had that exhibitionism focused at him in quite this way before, watching as her fingers slide down between her legs. A bead of sweat rolls down his face, into his eye and he blinks rapidly, not wanting to raise a hand to wipe it away. Toni's watching him, every line of her body a challenge.

“You want to join me?”

“Yes, Ma'am.”

“Tell you what you're going to do for me. You're going to touch me, just my clit and vulva so don't get handsy, and make me come. First with your fingers, then your mouth. You do that, and then, maybe, I'll use your cock. It's a nice cock, you must be very proud.” Toni sounds like any sarcastic senior officer dismissively rolling out orders.

By the second time Toni's come, Steve's jaw aches, Toni's juices are smeared across his face and he's so hard his eyes cross when he presses his cock against the mattress.

“You've done so well,” Toni says, voice honeyed and husky, “such a good boy. Come fuck me.” Steve has to hold his breath as he eases into Toni, feeling her wet and sensitised around him. She moans, a satisfied purr, and her legs fall even further open.

Steve can't hold back his orgasm, even if he wanted to. He experiences it as sudden, breathtaking, almost painful in its immensity. When he can manage to think again, Toni is lying alongside him and petting his hair.

“You going to talk, or just leave it all to me? That's a dangerous precedent to set, Steve.”

He shakes his head. Toni puts her arms round him and he relaxes into her.

“I'm exhausted. You tired? You look tired. I have to stink of sex right now.” Steve can smell it, the faint chlorine tang of his own semen, the rich caramel-salt of Toni's sweat.

“Not more than I do,” Steve says, his voice rusty.

“C'mon. It's a big shower. You can soap my back.”

Soaping Toni's body is almost meditative, the white suds creamy against her tea-coloured skin. Steve spans his fingers across her back, the warmth of her simmering under his fingers like sunshine. Sometimes he can't believe he's allowed to touch her.

He moves his hands to the front of her body, pulling her against him as he soaps her breasts far more thoroughly than they need, enjoying their softness under his palms, the give of the delicate brown halo around her nipples. The skin between her breasts, around her reactor is thin and bonded to the metal casing – it becomes over-sensitised easily, so he doesn't linger there.

“Mmmm.” Toni leans back into him, her ass firm against his cock. He kisses his way up her neck, trickles of water running under his lips, tasting a little of salt. They're both tired, Toni barely staying upright, and he manhandles her out of the shower and into bed without protest. He wraps his body around her like a starfish around its rock, all limbs and satisfied desire, resting his hands on the curves of her body.

He sleeps deeply, no dreams that he can remember but a lingering sense of peace.


	2. Chapter 2

SHIELD brings in War Machine to swell the ranks, now that Hulk is out of action and Bruce is busy trying to fix himself. Steve likes Rhodes for his patience and steadiness. It's also kind of comforting that Steve's not the only military man helplessly following Toni's crazy plans for entertainment-slash-publicity as she paints the town red. Steve's never been in a modern strip club before and he really doesn't want to a) stare at the girls or b) get recognised. 

“How do you do it?” Rhodes asks him, as they watch her delicately eat sushi off a lady's very flat, very glittery belly. “I mean, Toni's great, but how do you – I'm trying to find a nicer way to say 'put up with her'.”

“Put up with what?” Steve asks. Rhodes looks honestly worried, until Steve can't keep a straight face any more and they both burst out laughing.

“I honestly think I've got the best of the bargain.” Steve admits. “Just look at her. She's a genius and one of the bravest fighters I've ever known, and she looks like...” Toni leans over to pick up the last piece of sushi from the woman's lips, and Steve has a very nice view down her shirt. “She's beautiful. And funny as all get out.” And she loves me back, and she's amazing in bed, he doesn't add.

“And the drinking doesn't bother you? The partying? The way she's... licking soy sauce off a stripper? Oh God, she has no idea where that glitter's been.”

“It bothers me that she's unhappy,” Steve says, looking down at the glass he's rolling between his hands. 

“Yeah, that. Well, me too,” Rhodes says. “You've been good for her – you and the Avengers. She's never really had... equals.” Steve puts that away with the other scraps he's picked up about Toni's childhood.

"Want to hear something strange? She reminds me of Bucky – Bucky Barnes, old friend of mine," Steve adds, in case Rhodes doesn't know him.

"Lieutenant Barnes? Of the Howling Commandos? I would have thought Agent Carter..."

"Peggy? They would have got on like a house on fire, but Peggy was...honed. Tempered. Bucky was the one who used to pull crazy stunts out his ass, and he didn't like his dad much either. Their eyes are similar, and they both get - got - a lot of tail." And they kiss the same, he doesn't add, searching and yearning and aggressive all at once. Rhodes is military, he probably doesn't want to know that about Bucky - or about Steve, come to that. 

“Guys! Rhodey! Steve!” Toni collapses on the seat next to them, a streak of glitter down her face. “I think my image is sufficiently burnished here. Let's go do shots on the Empire State building. I'll suit up and carry you.” 

Rhodey winces.

“How about going home?” Steve counters. Toni looks at him, narrowing her eyes like a James Cagney gangster.

“Shots at home, on the roof, and strip poker after.”

“Deal.”

“Excellent. Rhodey's crap at cards when he's wasted.”

“Should I be jealous?” Steve asks, smiling behind his beer.

“No! No! I love your body,” Toni tells him earnestly. “We don't have to play strip poker.”

“Whipped, Stark.” Rhodey says lightly. He raises an eyebrow at Steve. 

“My self-respect is very fragile,” Steve tells him, straight-faced. 

*

“You didn't like the club? The girls will be disappointed.”

“Nothing against them, just – I know what they think about the men watching. I spent a while touring with USO girls, back before. You can probably guess what they used to say about the guys trying to look up their skirts. I couldn't really appreciate a woman that way, knowing what it would say about me.”

“That go for me too?” Toni inquires.

“The lady looked like she was having fun, and I assume you asked nicely. It looked like you knew each other...”

“Yeah, Candy and I used to party. I think I put her sister through college.”

“Bucky would have liked it. All the glitter and feathers.”

“Ladies man, huh?” Rhodey says, raising a knowing eyebrow as he deals out the cards. Steve chokes a little on his drink.

“Not exactly. Gimme one.”

“Wait, what – Bucky Barnes was gay?” Rhodey puts down his glass a little too hard, clearly more affected by the idea than Steve had expected. Rhodey's not a field officer though, he's an Air Force instructor, and he – and the rest of the military – likely have less of a _laissez-faire_ attitude to the love between men than the decidedly irregular commando unit Steve's used to. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“Everyone's a little gay when the moon is out,” Steve says lightly, trying to pass it off. Rhodey looks at him, bemused. Steve sighs. “That's not how it worked. He was just a man who sometimes liked to fool around with men. It's not... it wasn't his whole life.” _Sorry, Bucky_ he thinks, _didn't mean to blow your cover_.

“Steve.” Rhodey leans in, his face intent. “Can I tell people about this?”

“Why, do you have something against Bucky? He's dead, they can't kick him out now,” Steve argues, disappointed. He'd thought Rhodes was a nice guy.

“We don't kick people out for that any more. Gay soldiers can marry each other and everything.” Toni puts her cards down. “Unpack, James.” Steve has a moment of disorientation before he remembers that of course, Rhodey is also a James.

“Steve, I'm fighting a battle of my own at the academy. I've got cadets coming up who're stuck between the old ways and the new. If I can tell them that the tactical genius James Barnes, the sharpshooter in the statue up outside my lecture theatre, Captain America's best friend, loved other men... well, that could turn the tide.”

“The tide?”

“It's a battle for hearts and minds. Everyone who wants to serve should be allowed. Every one prepared to make that sacrifice deserves honor and comradeship. That's what I'm fighting for.”

Steve looks down at his cards. He hasn't heard anyone speak that way about the military since – since Dr Erskine, all those years ago, who'd seen the man he could become.

“In that case, Colonel, you can tell them with my blessing. And his, though... no, he doesn't have any folks around to object. There's another thing.” Steve takes a deep breath, focusing on his cards before deciding he has to look Rhodey in the eye for this one.  
“He and I – if it helps, you can tell your cadets about the two of us. It wasn't – we were more friends than lovers, but we did – we were. I loved him.” Toni puts her hand over his.

“Peggy-” Rhodes starts.

“Peggy too. Peggy most dearly. But I'd go through a lot to see Bucky again.” He turns his hand over to grasp Toni's. “Excuse me a moment?”

He leans against the cold wall outside the living room, carrying unshed tears in his throat. He can hear Toni, faintly.

“Of course I knew. He told me first thing. It just wasn't mine to tell you.”

“That's not what I – is he okay? Should I apologise? I feel like he just gave me a kidney.”

“Not an inaccurate analogy. Steve does love to donate for the cause. Blood, sweat, time, tears. You'll say thank you, and you'll treat this with the respect it deserves. And if public retribution comes howling down you will show up and support him to the hilt, understand?”

“It is the very least I could do, Toni, don't insult me. Of course.”

“Yeah. Drink?”

“You get protective over him.”

“He's my – he's mine.” Toni says quietly. “What else could I be?”

Steve rounds the doorway, his ears burning. 

“How about we play some cards?” His voice is a little hoarser than he expected, but Toni and Rhodey ignore it. It turns out Rhodey is terrible at cards, but Toni (once he stops her from card-counting) is worse.

*

Bruce hulks out in the containment unit – test conditions, Toni calls it. The only thing that goes well is that the unit doesn't break.

“Whatever Hydra did, it's sticking. He doesn't like being caged, either.” Toni says tensely. It hurts to look at the Hulk, muscles writhing under his green skin like snakes in a bag.

The gas Jarvis pumps in make the Hulk woozy, doesn't knock him out as Bruce and Toni hoped. It's a few tense hours before the Hulk goes to sleep and Bruce re-emerges, body hunched over and shaking.

“Yep, that was not good,” he says lightly, his shoulders tight as he turns away to pull on some clothing. It's Bruce's way of shedding the Hulk, Steve's worked out – once he has his clothes again, he can start breaking off the Hulk's experiences in his mind, separating himself from them. There were a lot of guys in Steve's unit who worked that way, talking about battles as if they'd only seen them from a distance. Steve realises with a familiar nausea that he never saw how that worked for them in the long run, never saw whether there was a limit to what you could pile behind that wall. They're all dead now, he can't ask them a thing.

*

Toni and Pepper are leaning into each other over a handheld screen, a glass of white wine in Pepper's hand. Steve hovers in the doorway, unsure if he's intruding. Toni's wearing a t-shirt that says 'Ask me about my military-industrial complex'.

“Come on in, Steve.” Pepper is always friendly. Steve can't tell if it's personal or if she's just nice to everyone.

“I can come back, if you're busy.” 

“Busy is not the word.” Toni leans back into the black leather couch, away from Pepper.

“I had a question about... stress, I guess.”

“Talk to Pepper. I think she did a master's in witch-doctoring or something,” Toni says, waving her hand. “I'm really not the person to talk to about mental health.”

“It was a PhD in experimental psychology, and I didn't complete it.” Pepper looks put together, as always, even though there are two empty wine bottles on the table and Toni's on Scotch. “This crazy engineer wandered into my house sometime in my third year, shouting at my room mate about torque, and ended up offering me a job.”

“You were wasted there. Actually, you're wasted here, but I figure in a few more years I can fund your presidential campaign and then I can wander around the White House and scandalise Congress.”

“You do that already.”

“Scandalise them more, then.”

“Anyway. Steve, what did you want to ask?”

“I don't really have the words for this stuff. It's about how people deal with bad experiences, death or war. See, I knew a lot of guys who would... partition it off.” Pepper nods, putting her glass down. 

“Dissociation. It's a valid coping mechanism, helps people deal with extreme events.” 

“I never could work that way, but-”

“Hold up.” Pepper raises a hand. “You must do, a little. Everyone does.”

“I don't think so. At least, not since I had the serum.”

“But when – sorry – when Toni fell, last week,” and Steve can see her stop, and put that pain away before she goes on, “you were fine.” Toni stares into her glass with a distinct air of not wanting to be in the room.

“I don't know what to tell you. I knew the best way to help her was to finish what I was doing, so I did.” Steve feels embarrassed, but Pepper doesn't look like she's about to laugh. “I always have to take the weakness back in, afterwards – as soon as I'm safe, I sit down and feel it all. Cry, or... well, that's not important. But it's always me doing those things, whether I'm killing or, or darning socks. Always the same me.”

“Jesus,” Toni says. “That sounds like shit.”

“That sounds... normal.” Pepper says, dubiously.

“Like a parody of a completely sane man.” Toni pours herself a drink, her voice icy. “Except sane men don't... don't fight crime in spandex.” Steve flinches.

“Or fight wars, or kill people,” Steve says, looking her in the face. “That's what you wanted to say, isn't it?” Toni stares back at him.

“I know what it's like, Steve. You can't go to war and not be changed.”

“I'm not saying it's easy, but I can't imagine not facing the things I've done, even the worst things. Maybe it's another thing I got out of that serum bottle.”

“Maybe it's why you managed to survive the treatment without getting a brightly-coloured alter-ego.” Toni drinks. “Guess I shouldn't dose myself up, then.”

“The war is part of me, just like all the rest. And then I look at Bruce and... Bruce seems to – he never takes the Hulk's experiences back into himself.”

“It's a lot to take.” Toni says quietly, looking into her glass.

“I could be barking up the wrong tree.” Steve leans back and spreads his hands. “I want your thoughts, Ms Potts. Is it possible that the split between Banner and Hulk could be affected by this, this walling-off? In the long run, what does it do to people?”

“I'm not listening to this.” Toni gets up, her movements jerky. “You want to dissect Bruce, dissect him to his face.”

“I have no intel – at all, Toni! I never even knew there was a word for dissociation till just now. I need to know if I'm being deluded, if there's some kind of modern way of dealing with this I don't know about. That happens to me a lot.” He tries not to sound bitter about that last bit and does anyway.

Toni stalks over to the bar while Pepper talks, her voice forcibly calm.

“We have therapy – it's basically talking about your feelings, somewhere safe, and figuring out what you've 'walled off'. There are lots of ideas – for some events, fishing it out can be worse than leaving it in there.” Neither of them look at Toni, but Steve knows they're both thinking about the shrapnel menacing her heart.

“Bruce already knows all about methods like this. He's probably used them extensively just to get to the point where he is now. You'd have to ask him, but in the general case, walling off parts of yourself is an immediate response to a bad situation, and that's healthy. But letting down the wall afterwards is part of that, and Bruce – at a guess he's still in that bad situation, so he can't let down the wall. I know you want to help, but you're not the right person.”

“Natasha.” Steve only knows Natasha's outlines, he'll let her do the colouring-in when she wants to. He knows enough to know that Natasha's demons lie in her mind, and that's a more terrifying location than he wants to imagine.

“That would be my pick.”

“Well. Thanks, Pepper. At least I won't say anything dumb to him tomorrow. I'll leave you two to your evening. Toni... will I see you later?” He doesn't want to be crude in front of Pepper. God knows if he had to watch Toni with someone else he wouldn't want the guy shoving their relationship in his face.

“Yeah, probably. Yes.”

*

Steve goes to make himself a sandwich. He eats more than any two of the other Avengers, except when Thor is celebrating. Thor seems to eat like a snake, a few enormous meals at weekly intervals, unless they've been fighting. Then he eats a truly terrifying amount, like an entire roast pig or seven Thanksgiving dinners or, on one strangely hypnotic occasion, a turducken. Natasha likes to take him to all-you-can-eat buffets at these times, just to see what the owners do when they realise.

Thor is also in the kitchen, reading the Volsungasaga with a frown. 

“I do not know what to make of this,” Thor says. “It is a tale well told, but it is as seeing through a distorting glass, with no idea of what lies behind. I must ask Heimdall of the truth of these deeds.”

“Never read it,” Steve says. “Isn't it, ah, fiction?”

“It is about – well, my brother and father appear, and not in the best light.”

“Sorry to hear it.” Steve doesn't know if he can apologise for a millennia-old Norse saga, but his mom raised him to be polite.

“Oh. Hi.” Bruce shuffles in.

“How you feeling, Doc?”

“Like shit, Steve, thanks for asking.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for. Want a sandwich?” He slides the ham and cheese he put together for himself over to Bruce. 

“Thanks.” Bruce bites into it. “'S pretty good. Mustard?”

“Want another?”

“Thanks, but I don't think there enough sandwiches in the building right now. I could eat a horse. Protein debt is killing me.” Bruce is usually a vegetarian, but after a transformation he has trouble getting enough animal proteins. It's the other reason he can't handle much physical stress.

“I got some steaks.” 

“I can-”

“It's no trouble.” Steve digs out a pan almost the size of his shield and starts frying, with some onions and eggs on the sides just to fill the space.

“Thanks – thank you.”

“I've been thinking about those Hydra beams,” Steve says, flipping a steak. “Could you explain what they are? Not, I know we don't know how they do... what they do, but are they radiation?”

“How much physics do you know?” Bruce asks, a tired smile on his face.

“Doc, I studied art in high school in 1936. I don't even know what I don't know.”

Bruce pulls a piece of paper towards himself to start sketching a diagram, and Steve dishes up the steaks. He follows Bruce through atoms and electromagnetic fields, but around the time he starts talking about the nature of electrons Steve has to stop him every few sentences for an explanation. Thor doesn't help, because he keeps laughing and saying things like 'Midgard is truly ingenious in its follies'.

“So it's a bit like a wave, and a bit like a particle, but it's actually tiny vibrating strings?” Steve says sceptically. 

“I...”Thor starts to say something, and then just shakes his head, looking like he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“Give or take,” Bruce says, amused, “as far as I know, anyway.” He uses a piece of bread to clear the steak juices off the plate and then goes over to do the same to the frying pan, leaving only a faint smear of grease. Then he eats the bread, savouring it.

“Best bit,” he says apologetically. “Hey, Steve... thanks.”

“Any time,” Steve says, “but I still don't understand the electrons.” 

“Ask me again tomorrow, I might give a better explanation.” Bruce gives a bone-cracking yawn. “I think I need about twelve hours sleep. Keep Toni away from me if she gets another idea for an experiment between now and six.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Feel free to use your initiative in distracting her,” Bruce says slyly, and slips out before Steve can do anything except blush.

“Ho!” Thor says, slapping him heartily on the back. It's the kind of manly gesture of solidarity that could kill a normal human. “She is a fine woman, Steve.”

“She is.” Steve deeply wants not to have the conversation he can see looming, not least because Thor has no concept of an indoor voice.

“Indeed, and the hour being as it is, you should go to her.” Thor smiles benevolently at him, as though he sees and forgives Steve's petty thoughts. 

Toni isn't in her room, or his. He tries to figure out where she'll go when she gets tired. If she goes to his room, wanting to see him, and he's in her room instead she'll find him on her second pass. She won't check his room for him if she goes to her room and finds it empty. But if she goes to her room, not wanting to see him, and he's there, then he'd be intruding. 

He's probably over-thinking this. He goes to bed in his own bedroom, under blue blankets and white cotton sheets, and falls asleep trying to keep his eyes open, waiting for her. Toni's not there when he wakes up. 

“JARVIS, where's Toni?”

“Ms Stark is in her workshop, Captain.”

He sighs, and goes to make some breakfast to take down to her.

*

They get a tip-off about a supposed Hydra location, a warehouse or a storage unit somewhere near Hoboken. Toni is hovering over the train tracks, bitching about impossible lines of sight and the fragility of goods trains. Steve tunes her out, trying to work out exactly how much of a wild goose chase they're on – none of the three places they've checked have had any evidence of Hydra occupation, and one of them was full of women's underwear.

Toni swears a blue streak in his ear. “There's someone in red and blue bouncing around like a flea up here, is he a hostile? Hey blue guy, stop or I shoot!” Steve sees the slim figure pelting down the street towards him and grabs him with little effort. 

“Is that a camera?”

“Please, don't break it!” The guy is all arms and legs, reaching for the camera with his whole body. “It cost a year's allowance!”

“Are you twelve?” Steve asks incredulously, taking in the teenage proportions and the voice that hasn't entirely stopped breaking.

“I'm, like, almost seventeen!” the kid says indignantly.

“Yeah, that's not making me feel better about you being here,” Steve says, dragging the kid towards a waiting SHIELD van by the scruff of his neck.

“Captain America, please let me go, I really don't want to hit you. I think I still have Cap pyjamas somewhere-”

“Why the camera?”

“I have an aunt to support – I'm really, really sorry, okay?”

“Superpowered paparazzi?” Toni says, landing. “Hope you're getting the big bucks, at least. Wow, he's tiny! You one of Xavier's kids?”

“Who?”

“Are. You. A. Mutant,” Toni says, over-enunciating. “There's this school-”

“I had a, a lab accident a few years back,” the kid says, shifting his feet. “Look, the cops and I don't have the best relationship, but I fight crime, mostly, and please – oh shit, I'm late for work,” he moans, as a phone somewhere under all the spandex starts beeping, “please, I swear I'll come back-” He twists sharply and throws himself over Steve's shoulder, forcing him to let go or dislocate his own arm.

“I'm really sorry!” The kid shouts as he jack-knifes in mid-air and starts swinging away down a line of telegraph poles. “I'll come back!”

“I feel old,” Steve complains.

“Flying photographers. My life just got even more fucking complicated. I'm passing this stress headache on to Fury at the earliest possible moment.”

“So, what do you think of Spider-man?” Hill smirks as she wanders over to them.

“Who?” Steve and Toni say in unison.

“I'll catch you up.”

“You knew about this kid? He's been swinging in to take pictures!”

“I guess that explains those leaks.” Hill says cheerfully. “Fury will be pleased.” Steve puts a prudent hand on Toni's shoulder before she actually tries strangle Maria.

They do some research back at the mansion, and it sounds like Spider-man isn't an agent of anything but himself (and possibly chaos, if the ranting of the NYPD press officer can be believed). Toni's still pissed off. Pepper has to dissuade her from buying out the Daily Bugle, before Spider-man actually comes back to the Avengers mansion to beg forgiveness.

Steve's looking through archived photos on his reinforced Stark handset when he catches a red-blue movement out of the corner of his eye and jumps up, grabbing his shield.

Spider-man, hanging upside-down outside the window, puts up both hands and almost falls before he grabs hold of his web again.

“I come in peace!” he shouts through the window. “Let me in?”

Steve figures if he can get past the outer perimeter, knocking on the window is purely for politeness's sake. He unlatches it and Spider-man swings inside. Steve shows him the photos he's been browsing.

“I think I've figured out which pictures are yours. You work for Jameson, right?”

“Please don't tell my boss about the web-swinging. He doesn't know how I get them. No one knows I'm Spider-man. It's not safe for them.” Though his mask is expressionless, his hands clasp to convey pleading, wrap around him in fear, cover his heart protectively.

“I figured. Your boss has been gunning for Spider-man for a while. Can't be much fun.” 

“Yeah, but he pays well, and I don't get health insurance otherwise.” Spider-man shrugs defiantly. “Fighting crime gets you hurt sometimes. You know.”

“I remember,” Steve says. “We won't tell your boss. I can't promise for SHIELD, but he's not a popular man there. Something about an eye-patch joke? They might use what they know to find your real name, but I'll do my best to block that.”

“Thank you. I really, uh. On behalf of my family. Thanks.”

“In return... stay out of trouble. I'd like to see how you fight once you're grown up, so try to survive that long? You'd make a good Avenger.”

“Guh? Uh... wow. That's...” Spider-man sways slightly, his hands dropped to his sides. A buzzing sound fills the room.

“Oh God, not again, sorry, thank you, tell Iron Woman I said sorry?” He dives out of the window without waiting for an answer, and Steve has to laugh.

*

The third attack comes from out of the blue. They're helping NYFD clear a burning building. The Avengers get called for suspected attacks just in case, but often stick around even if there are no villains to fight. So far, the fire department hasn't called them for many false alarms, but Steve stopped keeping an eye out for whoever started the fire an hour ago. Hawkeye's on lookout, and he needs to carry people out. He's just deposited an older lady on the tarmac and is walking into the smoke when it happens.

The world is haloed with green. 

Steve feels the shield get heavier and drops it, the clang of the vibranium echoing up and down the street. His muscles are water. He falls to his knees, and his body hurts wrong, sick and all too familiar. As he struggles up his suit is loose around him, only the helmet still fitting. The smoke starts to burn his lungs, like poison gas.

“I'm... help. Ow.”

“On my way.” Toni says over his earpiece. “Status?”

“I don't know.”

Toni swoops in. “What the – oh God, Steve. Steve?” She's taller than she used to be, towering over him.

“The serum,” Steve says, his voice faint in his own ears. He's had nightmares where this has happened, and he's had to watch everything he's too weak to defend burn in front of his eyes. Toni's still standing, though, bright lights sparkling behind her.

“Cameras,” he says weakly, and Toni spins to see the flashes going off hundreds of yards away. He can't hold himself up any longer, so he sits gently on the ground, wincing – were pavements usually this hard? He'd never noticed before.

“What part of 'evacuate' do they not understand,” she bites out, kneeling beside him.

“New Yorkers... always like this,” he whispers. “Toni, I can get to SHIELD medical. Go help. Natasha...” He coughs, forces his voice to come out louder as he raises a shaking hand to his earpiece. “Natasha, you're in command. I'm out.”

“Roger that, Captain,” Natasha replies smoothly. “Iron Woman, coordinate his extraction and then get back here.”

“Yes Ma'am,” Toni says thankfully. “I'm going to carry you over, Steve, think you can handle it?”

“Nothing's broken, but I might throw up if you take off.”

“The suit can handle it, but I'll bear that in mind.” 

Steve can stand on her boot and get an arm round her waist, but the top of his head barely reaches her shoulder. He feels like he's going to pass out.

“Toni, I...” The world is swimming before his eyes, and he can hear a steady stream of swearing in stereo as Toni struggles to hold onto him. He'd like to help, he really would, but he feels awfully tired.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve wakes up in a regulation hospital bed, with a lot more leg room than he's happy with. He usually sees the infirmary beds from the outside – they look more comfortable than they are. He shifts, trying to get away from a spring poking him in the ass.

“Hello, soldier.” Toni is, for once, not holding a StarkPad, or a smartphone, or even a magazine.

“Toni,” he says, smiling. His throat is arid. “Water?” 

“Don't pass out on me again. I'll train Dummy to pinch your ass every time he sees you.” She retrieves a cup with a straw from a side table, holding it to his lips. The water is unpleasantly cold, and he stops drinking after a few sips.

*

Steve puts it all together back at the mansion, once the doctors have reluctantly let him go. So far today he's failed a lung function test and had a barrage of vaccinations. He had been hoping nothing important would occur before he got some sleep in his own bed. 

As he curls his hands over the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, he feels like a child wearing an adult's clothes. His brain feels overworked and frustratingly slow at once.

“We're under attack. They're targeting our most vulnerable assets. Toni's reactor, Bruce's control, my strength. I'd expect an attempt on the other three of us soon. They're testing their weapons on us – use them all at once and the Avengers will be out of action or turned on our own side.” He rests his hand on the table, his wrist bones protruding. Was he really this thin, back then? “Bruce and I can't fight, Toni-”

“-is fine, actually. And hey, you guys might recover.” She winces even as she says it, and Steve tries not to be angry at her. Bruce gives him a hollow smile and sips on herbal tea.

“You've still got the best tactical mind in SHIELD,” Clint says, trying to bring the conference back around. 

“I can't be an Avenger like this,” Steve says simply, not wanting to complain about how dull his mind seems now he's... normal again. He can barely lift his shield. He can't run more than a hundred meters.

“Bullshit,” Toni says fiercely.

“We're missing something,” Natasha says suddenly.

“The other afflictions were different,” Thor agrees, his voice troubled. “Bruce is fine when he is not transformed. Toni's was but a momentary magic. This seems more... extensive.”

“JARVIS, full reading on Steve from now on – every system you have,” Toni snaps. “Note any change in parameters and inform me immediately.”

“Authorisation required,” JARVIS says.

“Go ahead, JARVIS, scan me,” Steve replies wearily. Was he always this tired, back then? “Can I get something to eat?” 

Toni goes to the kitchen to look through the fridge, talking too fast and too loud.

“Poptarts? Pie, we've got some... yoghurt? Oh, and ice cream. Frozen pizza. Quicker to order, or hey, I'll run and get some.”

“No one goes outside alone,” Steve orders. Clint takes the frozen pizza out of Toni's hands, adds three more from the freezer, and slings them in the oven.

“Food on its way. Stark, what do you have on the weapon that took you out?”

“JARVIS, all analysis of Hydra weapons on screen. Bring forward the Hulk rage beam, the beam that took my suit down and the beam that shrunk Steve today, all the telemetry we have. Look through SHIELD files, don't waste time covering your tracks.”

Steve knows what an outsider would see as Clint's strength. “Clint, I know you hate them, but you wear those fancy SHIELD goggles outside. We need your vision. Thor, if you have any way to guard Mjolnir more stringently, do it.”

“What about me?” Natasha says quietly. “You've read my file. You know what mine's going to be.”

“They'll try to turn your mind,” Steve says, evasion being useless when talking to Natasha. “You may be the last one of us left fighting.”

“Why?”

“Because if they do that, they'll be aiming in the wrong place. Your mind, your loyalty – I can't think of a harder thing to warp.”

Clint lays his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “I'll watch you if you watch me.”

“Count on it.” Natasha's voice is hoarse. Steve looks away.

“If Mjolnir is turned to evil, my father would make war upon this planet for Hydra's actions,” Thor says seriously. “I cannot but think their work has more magic about it than we have yet thought. They held the Tesseract once. It is the worst timing, but if I travelled swiftly I might gain answers from Asgard before we are forced to battle again.”

“And if not we're left with me and Natasha against the powers of darkness,” Clint argues. “We're good, but those are shitty odds.”

“I can still fight,” Toni says. “I've been working on auxiliary power sources, and anyway they only knocked out the reactor for, what, a few seconds?”

“One minute and seventeen seconds, Ms Stark,” JARVIS intones. Steve could swear JARVIS sounds annoyed, but he could be projecting.

“It's only a problem in mid-air, I'll stay on the ground, it's fine, and frankly Bruce and I are up shit creek without an answer on this one. We have to know – Thor, tell me what data you need, hell, let's send everything we've got just in case. I'll get a datapad and some wormhole-quality casing.”

“Captain, I think this is a waste of resources,” Natasha appeals to him. Clint nods.

“Without knowing their tools, we wander blindly,” Thor counters, “and who knows what other threats they may conjure from that source.”

“Stop,” Steve says as loudly as he can, and then, into the resulting silence, “why are you asking me?”

“You're the leader,” Toni says blankly. “Are you okay? Do you need to lie down? What's my name?”

“No, no, Antonia Eduarda Stark and you hate the Eduarda part. Why not vote on it?”

“Ugh, democracy,” Natasha says, disgusted, but with Steve abstaining they send Thor to Asgard with all the information they can pull together and instructions to come back as soon as possible, yesterday if he can manage it. They don't discuss that among the magic experts Thor will have to consult is Loki, imprisoned in rock, silver and running water. Thor is resolute as he steps into the beam of the Bifrost, his eyes sad and infinitely old.

*

Steve hesitates at the door, watching Toni's hands dance over her lightscreens as she sets up searches for Hydra activity. 

“Toni, you going to sleep tonight?”

“There's something off. These beams all look the same. Why are the effects all different?”

“Do the effects have anything in common?”

“The arc reactor is pure physics, your change is biological, Bruce's appears to be in his head. So no.”

“Will you think about this more clearly in the morning?”

“Sure, in a minute.”

“I'll just wait here for you then.” Steve sits down and tries to look tired. It's not hard.

“You were always this stubborn, weren't you.”

“Right from birth,” he agrees. “Bed?”

“I...” she sighs, sweeping her amendments off the screen. “I should. You definitely should. My room?”

“If you don't mind. I mean – I'm not what you're used to. Should have the improved version back before long.” He hopes so, anyway.

“Don't be stupid. If you grow tentacles you can start talking like that, not before. Maybe not even then.”

They don't touch each other as they walk along the halls to Toni's rooms. Steve notices that even out of the suit, Toni has a good few inches on him.

In her bedroom, he takes his clothes off awkwardly, scared and angry at himself for being scared.

“Well, this is the real me.” He lifts his arms, turns around to avoid looking at her face for a few seconds more.

“Wow. So you were hung before the serum, then.” He looks up at her, surprised, and Toni bites her lip. “That's... sorry, that's unbearably hot.” 

Steve chokes out a laugh – that's not the reaction he expected, but it's so like Toni. 

“Steve.” Toni runs her hands over his shoulders, pulls him in towards her as she leans down to kiss him. He can't resist her – she's stronger than he is, now.

“You taste the same.” Toni murmurs against his lips, and it sparks something hungry in the pit of his stomach. He pushes up, pressing into her mouth, lush and warm and wet.

“Toni...” He runs his hands up her stomach, stroking her breasts through her t-shirt. “Take this off?” She raises her hands and he strips it off her, throwing it to one side. As he thumbs her nipples he runs his lips along her collarbone, presses kisses to the underside of her jaw. He bites her, teeth pressing down on the muscle of her neck.

“Fuck, Steve.”

“Always wanted to do that.”

“Why the hell didn't you? Don't stop, Jesus.”

“I could have hurt you. One of the few advantages of having my old body back. I don't have to be so careful.” He bites gently higher up her neck, licking over the sensitised skin.

“More -” Her hand on the back of his head pushes him up, presses his mouth onto her body. 

He can't pick her up and carry her to the bed, so he takes both her hands and pulls her over to it, stopping now and then to take off one more piece of her clothing and say hello to the skin underneath it. Measured against her body his hands are smaller, his fingers more delicate. Toni's breasts overflow his palms as he cups them.

Toni lies down and pulls him on top of her, wrapping her arms around him. “Thought I'd lost you,” she murmurs into his chest. “I couldn't – I don't want to believe you're gone, ever again.”

“'M only half gone,” he says into her hair, smiling.

“Don't say that. Please. Steve, just – show me you're here. Make me feel it.”

He takes her hands and pins them above her head, trying not to put too much pressure on her wrists as she arches up into him.

“Choke me.”

He takes one hand off her wrists and wraps it carefully around her throat. Toni's eyelids flutter shut, and she makes a soft, yearning sound.

“I'm here, I'm fine, I've got you.” He can feel her pulse under his fingers. He eases his hand away after a minute, sitting back so he's kneeling between Toni's legs. She makes a disappointed sound.

“Can't hold myself up for long – give me a minute.” He stretches the cramp out of his arm as Toni props herself up on her elbows, stretching her neck up to press soft kisses against his narrow chest. His breathing is getting a little wheezy.

“Slow down. We've got time.” Toni runs her hands over his throat, down his chest and it shouldn't help, but it does.

*

The next morning Steve is aching from head to foot. He showers gingerly, his muscles twinging at odd times. His thighs, ass and stomach are the worst, a slow burn that flares up when he bends over. He borrows some of Toni's clothes, sweatpants and plain T-shirts that don't look too strange on him.

As he shuffles into the kitchen Clint gives a low whistle.

“Jesus, what happened? Is it worse?”

“No, I don't think so. Just, ah, overdid it a little. I guess I'm not used to being able to hurt.”

“What did you do?”

Toni wanders in and Clint almost chokes on his coffee, then laughs.

“You're kidding me. Couldn't take one night off?” Steve looks and yep, Toni has three unmistakeable hickies blooming on her neck.

“What, do I have something on my face?” 

“I'm sorry, Toni, I, uh, left some bruises.” He gestures to his neck.

“Plus he's walking like you beat him up.” Clint says. “Don't break the guy, Toni.”

“I'm fine,” Steve protests.

“Jarvis, how's that scan on Steve going? Any changes, injuries?” Toni snaps.

“Some minor muscular damage. You have both had far worse. SHIELD have asked that you attend at HQ medical as soon as convenient, Captain.”

“SHIELD probably need to know how this happened,” Steve says reluctantly.

“Okay. What, like I'd put our privacy over your health?”

“No – maybe I was trying to persuade myself a little. I don't like Fury knowing about our romantic life.”

“Ugh. Well, I can tell him. You need to take it easy. Your breathing is still raspy. I have some inhalers somewhere, I was looking at the aerosol mechanism.”

“It was worth it,” Steve says, watching Toni rummage through a drawer. “Even if I need an oxygen tank, I'd prefer to keep... spending nights with you.”

“That's both sweet and terrifying. I'm being forced to speculate about what you're doing to each other in there.” Clint comments. Steve blushes, it's a reflex and he's pretty sure it's even worse in this body.

“I will TMI you beyond your mind's capacity to endure,” Toni says serenely, “unless you leave this kitchen. Go hide in Coulson's ducts.”

“Is that, uh...“ Steve looks at Clint, not sure what he'd just heard.

“It's not a euphemism,” Clint says hurriedly. Toni cackles. “I just use the air conditioning system to practice moving around. Sometimes.”

“We should put some obstacles in there to help you train. And to keep out anyone you don't catch.” Steve thinks this is a reasonable idea. Clint and Toni both smile at him in an unreasonable fashion.

“Lasers,” Toni starts.

“Pistons! Like those useless obstacle pistons in Galaxy Quest,” Clint says eagerly. Toni high-fives him. 

“I will make you pistons. Now leave.”

“All right! I got a bribe, we're cool.” After the door closes behind Clint, Steve hears a faint clank, as of an air-conditioning grill being lifted. He's too distracted by Toni's mouth to listen for anything else.

*

Steve's always been a light sleeper and is only more so now, so he wakes up as soon as Natasha slips into their bedroom.

“Cap. Stop me,” she says hoarsely. There's a knife in her hands. “Went out. They got me.” She's still walking towards the bed, her steps dragging. Steve vaults out of bed and tries to stop her. The moment he closes she goes off like a switch has been flicked – all too apt a metaphor. She knocks him into a wall, and he scrambles up as Toni trips Nat and falls down with her, trying to pin Natasha and get the knife away and unreachable. 

“Toni, handcuffs!” Steve rummages in the bedside table, throws her a pair. They're for his use, so they're definitely strong enough to hold Natasha.

“Call Barton,” Nat gasps, trying to throttle Toni. Steve tackles her from behind – she's helping them as well as fighting them, he'd never be able to do this in training.

They put her in a containment unit next to Bruce's. Clint keeps vetoing anything they try to put in with her on the grounds that Natasha can use it to break out, kill someone or both. A cotton sweater is eventually approved – Nat's in her training gear, and the containment unit is cold. A squeezy cardboard box of orange juice and scrambled eggs and bacon on a paper plate go in with it. Fury sends four agents, stone-faced men and women who know Natasha from SHIELD and from her time before.

“I hope we resolve this before I need to piss,” Natasha says grimly.

“Don't let her out for that,” Clint says immediately. 

“Where's the love, Hawkeye?” Natasha says sweetly, before switching gears to begging. It's graceless, too fast and forced, and Steve wants desperately not to see her like this, so uncontrolled. “I can control it, I swear, please don't humiliate me like that.”

“You'll thank me later,” Clint says confidently.

“You're throwing away every favour you ever did me. I'll ensure your death is undignified and public, and you will see every face you know laugh at your humiliation before it ends.”

“You and I stopped trading favours long ago, Tasha.”

“You did. I never trusted you. You're trying to imprison me, how can you be trusted?” She hits both her hands against the glass, making Bruce jump.

“We'll fix it.” Clint's wearing a mask ten layers thick. Steve can't tell what's under that confidence.

“I'm not your dog! That servitude your keepers forced from me was always a lie. You'll cage me back up,” Natasha spits, paranoid and desperate.

“Yup. Natasha's more important than the little subroutine you've got running here.” Clint turns to the two guards, taking their first shift. “Don't talk to her, call me if she moves, if she starts breathing funny, anything.”

Clint walks to his room with his head held high, Steve and Toni lagging behind. As the door closes behind him, Steve catches a single harsh sound, more like a cough than a sob. 

*

Coulson's mouth is pinched at the corners, and he moves slower than he used to, but his voice is still calm and calming.

“Captain Rogers, I have a request. We have a volunteer who needs briefing. Two hours from now, in a coffee shop on the west side.”

“On what?”

“Hydra. We've been trying to get an agent in for some time. Johanssen needs as much background as you can give him – methods, organisation.”

“They mess with people's brains-”

“Yes, that has been reported. Johanssen is... an ally, from a group with no love for Hydra. Ordinarily they would be unlikely to cooperate with us. His leader assures us that Johanssen has extremely high levels of psychic resistance.”

Steve thinks over the tactical map of the modern day floating hazily in his mind. He used to have everything at his fingertips, he's sure, but he can't work out where Johanssen might be from. One of the mutant groups, surely, but he doesn't want to ask on a potentially open line.

He tells Coulson yes and puts together a file of his past debriefings, and a more tentative one of his observations since he woke up. They're all written down somewhere, but pulling them together and erasing anything extraneous takes time. Coulson picks him up in an aggressively anonymous car, handling the stick-shift with a stilted sort of determination.

“Johanssen's not one of ours. He may be somewhat brusque,” Coulson warns.

“I'm sure I'll survive. Should I know which organisation he's from?”

“It might be best not to,” Coulson says apologetically.

Johanssen is young (a little older than Steve looks) and blond, his head shaved to a straw-coloured bristle. He's carrying a copy of the Washington Post from three weeks ago, as promised.

“Mr Johanssen-”

“My name is Obstros.” Coulson didn't mention that detail. “But you have the right person.”

“Obstros. Thank you for coming here.”

“And you are?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“I'm pretty sure Steve Rogers is taller,” Obstros snorts dismissively.

“I was, until recently.” Steve leans forward, lets Obstros get a good look at his face.

“Holy shit.”

“That's what Toni said,” Steve replies wryly. “We think it's temporary. What do you want to know about Hydra?”

“Let's start with ancient history, and move on from there. But first – my leader wants to meet you.”

An old man, grey hair waving smoothly back from a dignified brow, slips in next to Obstros.

“You have changed somewhat since our last meeting – but I suspect I have too.” His voice is British and cultured, like Peggy's, but carries a faint, faint trace of a German accent. 

“I'm not sure-” If Steve does know him, it's not from the 21st Century.

“Guess. Oh, we have a little time – Obstros here can look through your files, see if they're worth taking with him. Paper is so old-fashioned, but it does have its uses. Like you.”

Steve hands over the files and looks him over. The man would have been a teenager in the war. It's the eyes that jog his memory, the burning eyes of a fanatic.

“I think the last time we met was longer ago for you than me. A... convoy, somewhere in Germany, very near the end. You did coin tricks.” What was his name, that boy with the too-thin face and so much anger?

“Very good. I gave up coin tricks in the early sixties. I can still find time for the old enemies, though.”

“Erik,” Steve says suddenly, remembering.

“Magneto,” the old man corrects him. “Human names are for humans. Your superiors must be desperate, to have contacted me – how are things there?”

“Holding fast. We could use some information, get ahead of the curve. Defence is harder than offence.”

“True. I am sorry to see you so... reduced, I must say. You were a fine figure.”

“The body isn't the measure of a man, or a mutant. Something Hydra don't understand,” Steve adds to Obstros, who is looking a little shell-shocked. “They like big muscles and strong jawlines.”

“Overcompensating,” mumbles Magneto.

“I've seen your helmet,” Steve says, “and you can't talk.”

There's a moment of dangerous silence before Magneto laughs.

“I begin to think that you might actually be what you pretend, Captain.”

“I don't pretend anything, except when I'm on stage. Why did you want to meet me?”

“Nostalgia?” Magneto sneers. “No. You were a hero in my youth – I suppose I wanted to see how that worked out for you.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think that unless Charles is hiding somewhere here, my thoughts remain my own.” He stands to go, clapping Obstros on the shoulder. “You can trust his information, boy. I'll give you a final briefing later. Ask him all the questions you need.”

Obstros is more respectful after that. Another young man with a need to prove himself. Steve wants to ask him what his real name is, but it wouldn't go down well.

“I hope you have a plan to get him out.” Steve tells Coulson afterwards, as they get into the car.

“Several. The Brotherhood have been almost suspiciously helpful.”

“I won't ask.”

*

Rhodey looks like someone pissed in his coffee, and Clint is jittery, wanting to go take care of Natasha in her cell. Bruce is off calming himself down, possibly with drugs – he hates not having a clear head, but no one can handle a giant green loose cannon right now. Steve reckons he's as healthy as he's going to get – he hasn't had a coughing fit for a while. 

Johanssen – Obstros – has reported back. Colonel Fury doesn't slow down to sugarcoat the bad news.

“Hydra want to bring Johann Schmidt back. And, since they want us out of they way while they do it, they've set up a bomb down on 5th Avenue and surrounded it with agents.”

“Shitting hell,” Toni says grimly. 

“They probably thought their dimensional portal would go unnoticed, but it turns out that they targeted the wrong Avenger - Hulk may be out, but that means Banner is free to concentrate on weird gamma ray patterns," Maria says. She hands a screen to Toni, who starts flipping through a series of wavering graphs as she talks.

“Fury, we're on a severely reduced roster. Thor's in Asgard, Bruce is on lockdown, Cap's not well, Natasha is – compromised. I've been working on an armour setup that'll work even if the arc reactor turns off, but it's not great.”

“You'll die if it turns off.” Steve bites out.

“I'll have a little time.”

“Give the setup to Rhodes.” Steve says urgently. Rhodes doesn't need an arc reactor to live. 

“No need.” Toni smiles, or at least bares her teeth. “War Machine has the set up. Mine's not in his size, anyway. Consider it two for the price of one.” Steve takes a deep breath and tries not to scream, or lock Toni up somewhere safe until the battle's over. 

Fury starts talking again. "Rhodes is best equipped to take the portal.” Rhodey nods. He's already wearing the lightweight flightsuit that fits under his armor.

“Agreed,” Toni says. “He's in the best shape of all of us, and they won't be looking for him - especially not with the radar-blocking coating on his new suit. It's fugly-looking, but aesthetics aren't high on my to-do list right now."

"Oh no, guess I'll have to make sure no-one lives to mention it.” Rhodey's face is grim. “I'm going alone?"

Clint taps a point on the map."I've found a perch for you to drop me at before you Rambo the joint. You'll need eyes. Hill, I need Coulson to watch Nat, I know he's not fully recovered, but-”

“He's on his way,” Fury says.

Steve examines the map of the portal's location, deep in the mountains. "There's likely to be eyes in place here, and here – that's how they used to set up their bases. 

“I'll need to go low to drop Hawkeye, then double back, use cloud cover.” Rhodes traces a line on the projection. “What do you reckon?"

“Looks like a plan. What about after the approach?”

"Get in, blow everything up, get out - unless there's any reason that won't work?"

"It's my favorite kind of plan.” Hill says. “Military backup is on its way, the portal site has first priority. SHIELD will do what it can around the tower – I'll be running that site."

"Guess it's you and me, Maria." Toni smiles at her. "I always wanted to be a distraction."

“And me,” Steve says. “I might recognise the set up – Hydra only use a few different base designs. Might see some weak points.”

Steve holds her back as the others file out.

“Toni, give me one good reason for going out there.”

“No one else can. And I can do this, I know it – and you know it too.” Her eyes are so full of love Steve almost wants to look away. Toni breaks off first, examining her nails as if she's ever cared two pins what her nails look like. “I have to find Hydra's tech if nothing else – Bruce can't go out there, Rhodey's going to need him on coms for the portal, and he's the only other one of us with half a chance of understanding the fucking thing.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose, wishing she wasn't right. 

“Hey. Steve, it's okay. You knew I was like this, right?”

“Yes. God help us both.”

“Amen. C'mon, I need you on site.”

*

When they get to the scene, Steve stares in disbelief at the tower ahead of them. Eighty-seven stories, and Hydra at least half-way up. Toni can't fly without risking a fall.

“I'm coming with you,” Steve says.

“Uh, no you're not.”

“You wanted my advice. I'm small enough to hide – drop me round back and I'll walk up. Look at the infra-red map, they're all on the main stairwell, lower levels. Keep them busy while I try-”

“-to get yourself killed? No. I'll fly up-”

“Too risky.”

“Captain, Stark, we have a visitor approaching,” Hill cuts in, with a glare that means 'keep it together or else'.

A familiar blue-red blur appears on the security cameras, several blocks away, and Steve adjusts his holster straps for the eighteenth time as they go outside to wait for Spider-man to arrive. It's weird doing this without his shield, for all that it would be useless to him now. At least SHIELD have managed to find a body suit and armour in his size. At least he can still aim a gun.

“Wow, you shrunk,” Spider-man says, having taken a few seconds to recognise him.

“Can everyone please stop saying I shrunk? I didn't shrink! This is the size I really am!” Steve complains, then feels embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“Sure thing, big guy. Hey, uh, you guys look a little under strength, and there are a lot of Hydra dudes over there.”

“Yes, full marks for observation,” Toni snaps. “Look, as a personal favor, could you take your pictures now rather than afterwards? I want the guests at my funeral to see my pretty side.”

“Uh, I was thinking more, I could help you?”

“No,” Steve says quickly, even as Toni says “That could work.” They glare at each other.

“I'm not putting a high school kid up against Hydra,” Steve says firmly. He's seen kids who signed up back before, not knowing what they were getting into. He's seen them waste their lives.

“Spider-man has been fighting off some pretty serious opposition alone, for more than a year – nice job with the lizard guy, by the way.”

“Uh, thanks, Ms. Stark.”

“And Hydra's been collecting Avengers' scalps. I don't think Spidey will be on their target list.”

“I respect your work, and you seem like a nice guy,” Steve says, narrowly avoiding saying 'boy'. Spider-man rubs the back of his head bashfully. “But it isn't your fight.”

“Uh, thank you, sir, but I live here. It's at least partly my fight.” And something in his quiet stubbornness, in the way he's standing still for the first time since Steve's met him – well, it's like talking to himself, a long time ago.

“Okay, then. But if you run into heavy fire, high-tail it out of here. You're already doing far more than we could ask. We can take care of ourselves.” Steve feels stupid even saying it – he's far more vulnerable than Spider-man.

They give him a comm, and he turns away to slip it on under his mask.

“Testing, testing, do you read?”

“Read you five by five, Spider-man.” Toni says.

“That's so cool.”

They come up with a new plan. While Toni distracts Hydra, staying on the ground as much as possible, Spider-man and Steve will swing around and drop Steve on the roof, going as unnoticed as they can. 

“There's a lot of if in this plan,” Hill says, “but time's wasting. Good luck.”

Steve feels faintly ill as Spider-man launches himself off the side of a skyscraper. Climbing up was bad enough, but falling... At least he seems to be slowing the guy down, the usual swings must be even worse.

There's a faint tune over his earpiece. “Star-spangled man with a plan...”

“Who's singing?” Steve barks.

“Uh. Oh, is the radio on all the time, then?”

“Yes. Cut the chatter, Spider-man.” He gives Spider-man a friendly pat on the shoulder, trying not to let go of anything.

“That's adorable.” 

“You too, Iron Woman. We get one shot at this.”

They get to the top of the nearest building and wait for Hydra to concentrate on Toni, who is pinned down behind a car by what sounds like machine gun fire.

“Try missiles,” Hill orders.

“Got a better idea.” Toni stands up. “Get in as soon as I hit the building.”

“Iron Woman, stay put – Toni!” Hill shouts.

She lifts off, and Steve's heart is in his mouth.

“Sorry, but we gotta get in. Go, Spidey.” And then Steve's heart is in his mouth as they swing round and he gets dropped on the roof mid-swing – at least he remembers how to roll on landing. He can hear Hydra agents speaking to Toni – some kind of loudspeaker, not too far down.

“We know you, Iron Woman. You will fall!”

“If you knew me, you'd point that gun at your own head, make it quicker.” A bolt of green light pulses up past the roof. “Oh look, I'm still here.” There's the whining sound of repulsors charging, and the crash of a window. “Drop it and open up. Now.”

“Hail Hy-” A crash and the orange light of flames is all Steve gets.

“Stupid sons of – you gotta wonder how Hydra keeps recruiting. Steve, try the roof.”

The roof door is rigged. Steve skips this bit of pleasantry by lowering himself over the edge and dropping onto a balcony. He gets in by smashing in a window, cursing steadily under his breath the whole time. He can hear crashes and the chatter of automatic weapons through his earpiece.

“I'm inside, lots of Hydr- woah!” Toni says, in that monotone which means she's talking to herself as much as to him.

The stairs are quiet, and he tries not to breathe too loudly or go too fast. He thinks he's spotting all the security cameras, but he's not sure.

There's a static crackle in his ear. 

“Iron Woman, are you okay? Respond!” Hill says in his ear, but there's no answer. He presses his lips together, praying without words, and goes on.

Steve gets down the stairs to the 44th floor, where Hydra forces were densest on the scan. It's quiet, and he treads softly towards a scorched door hanging off its hinges – Toni was here.

He shoots the lone man standing at the window in the back, before he gets noticed.

“Is anyone reading me?”

“Captain, I hear you.” Maria Hill says, her voice thin over his headset.

“I have a device here. It's set up like a machine gun, but the magazine is a glowing tube about two foot across, lime green – oh.” He spots the second, smaller device with an inward groan.  
“There's another one. Wired like a warhead, no timer that I can see. Explosives around a dark green stick of – something. Clear the area, this is some kind of enhanced explosive. Bomb, do you read me?”

“Bomb, I read you... magic? or...”

“Looks magic, repeat, magic. Hill, you're fading.”

“...vac..”

"Hill, come in!"

"...field strength...coms. Sorry... evac... Capt-..."

“Repeat.”

“You're...” Not matter how Steve fiddles with the headset, he gets nothing but static. All the bands on his radio are dead, even when he goes up a few floors to get some distance. The area around the tower is deserted. He leans out as far as he can, but he can't see the red-gold of Toni's armour anywhere on the ground.

"Well, that was useless." Steve crouches down next to the almost-certainly bomb and takes a hard look at it. If it's set up logically, the wires into the conventional explosives will lead to a control unit. "Guess it's just you and me. Let's take a look at these wires." It may be his imagination, but the pulsing colour-shifts seem to be speeding up. "No exploding, now. Hold your horses."

"Toni, if you talk to me right now I'll give you anything you want. I wish you were here - actually, scratch that, you're better off as far from this as possible." Steve never really caught up on radiation, but the green tube doesn't feel hot when he hovers his hand over it. Can radioactivity block out radio signals? 

Whatever it is, it looks like the conventional explosives could only take out the tower top, maybe level the tower if they were in key structural positions. Their main purpose must be to set off the green stuff.

It looks pretty hastily assembled. If he's lucky, if New York is lucky, he might be able to remove the green stuff from its explosive packaging without setting either of them off. There's not obvious trigger – in fact, the green stuff doesn't appear connected to anything else, no wires or bolts, nothing he can see anyway.

“Toni, I really need your help. I hope you're okay.”

He feels a wrenching terror in his gut, stamps it down quickly. He has too much to lose, that's why he's afraid, and being afraid never helped anyone keep hold of anything.

He wraps one hand around the rod – the swirling patterns boil around his fingertips – then lets go before he lifts it. He'd better arrange something to hold the thing once he's taken it out, because with that kind of response he damn sure doesn't want to be stuck hanging onto it.

There's a box, plastic filled with dense silvery grey metal and a hole in the middle just the right size for the rod. Maybe the original transport case, if he's lucky.

“Okay. Okay.” He breathes in deeply, then grasps the rod at each end, trying to lift it smoothly, wincing at every slight jar and scrape. He puts it in the box and shuts the lid.

The bomb beeps.

“Oh fuck,” Steve says quietly. A second passes, then a few more. He breathes again.

“I honestly never thought I would hear you swear.” Toni's voice crackles in his ear.

“Toni! Oh, thank God.”

“Good to hear your voice, Steve. Need some help?”

“I love you. Yes, I have a bomb up here, possible timer.”

“You love her?” A third voice crackles over his earpiece.

“And it sounds like Spider-man's with us,” Toni says, trying for levity through a layer of what Steve suddenly realises is pain. “Help me up to the Captain, kid, and watch the hardware.”

“Iron Woman, are you okay?”

“Hit the ground pretty hard, suit took most of the damage. You?”

“I'm fine, might have some weird radiation exposure. Try to keep clear, Spider-man,” he adds as an afterthought. 

“No concern for me? Ouch,” Toni gasps.

“You're tough. Get up here and stop complaining.”

“Sir, yes sir. Fucking military-industrial complex.”

“-ptain, do you read?” Hill's voice comes in over his earpiece, crackly but there. 

“I read you, Commander.”

“Sitrep?” Steve can hear a whoop in the background, and Hill sounds deeply relieved.

“Bomb. A, uh, green volatile component removed, reactivating comms. Iron Woman en route to disable explosive. Possible timer.”

“Talk telegraphic to me, baby,” Toni says. “Be with you in-”

“Window!” Spider-man yells, and Steve hears it in stereo before the two of them crash through.

“Spider-man, that was the worst ride ever,” Toni coughs.

“Bomb over here,” Steve says, “and thank you, Spider-man, now please get the heck out of the blast zone.”

“Don't need to tell me twice,” Spider-man says brightly, diving out of the window. “Crazy bastards.”

“Kids these days – bomb?” Toni asks, refocusing.

“There.”

“Gonna need a screwdriver – look around.” Steve hands her one from a stash of tools near the gun, and sits down a careful distance away as she leans over the casing, muttering to the bomb like it's a stray cat.

There's a beep, and then another three. Toni sits back on her heels and rolls her shoulders.

“Oh, I'm so good.” She detaches the plastic explosive bricks neatly, stacking explosives and detonators as far apart as possible as she dismantles the bomb.

“Done?”

“Done. SHIELD, any more sources visible on scan?”

“Nothing big enough to show. Get back here and we'll sweep the building for you. Hill out.” Steve taps his earpiece off.

“Off comms,” he tells Toni.

“Amen,” Toni mutters, standing up, a little wobbly on her feet. 

“Are you hurt?” 

“Nothing I can't walk off.” 

Steve puts his hand up to touch the side of her helmet.

“Open up?”

“Here? Kinky.”

Steve sighs. “Open your faceplate, Stark, before I rip it off.” Not that he could, anymore.

“I saved your ass, Cap, a little respect?” Steve kisses Toni's lips as soon as they appear. She's alive, she's alive, his girlfriend fell eight stories and she's alive and kissing him back.

“You saved a city block at least,” he tells her quietly, tucking his head under her chin. “And me, and yourself. Thank you.” Her metal-covered arms close carefully around him.

“Uh, I'm still up here.” Spider-man's voice is part hesitant, part horrified. He must land like a cat, Steve thinks distantly.

“Shit,” Toni swears, wrenching herself away from Steve.

“I mean, you guys were pretty obvious before, but, um, anyway, can I give you back this earpiece now? Only I'm pretty sure there's a tracker on it, which, uh... and it looks expensive.”

“Yeah, give it here,” Steve sighs, turning it off. Toni looks pale.

“Look, I know you have a living to make-” she starts.

“Pics or it didn't happen is the Spider-man creed. I heard nothing.” Spider-man raises his hands, stepping back. “Mazeltov and whatever, my lips are sealed.”

“You are officially my favourite vigilante. You ever want to get out of the spandex closet, come talk to me about a job. Or a college fund.” She staggers a little. “Get out of here, though, cause we need to call for an evac. Ow.”

“Oh damn,” Steve groans, “you-” he turns his earpiece back on. “Roof evac, now. Iron Woman is injured.”

“I'm fine.” Toni peels back a plate from her abdomen, and blood runs over her armour, brighter and glossier than the red metal. “Oh. I'll sit, then. Adrenaline, huh, you never notice till it goes away.” 

Steve opens his bodysuit and pulls off his undershirt to hold against the gash, trying to pull back the plates to get a better view. All he does is hurt his fingers.

“This looks deep,” he says, worried. “Toni, are you okay?”

He doesn't get an answer. Toni's eyes are closed, and she never passes out, never, this is bad. He touches her cheek and her eyes open, half-lidded.

“You stay with me,” Steve orders. “Talk, c'mon.”

“Don' wanna.” He can't think, this is what it must be like without the serum. He can't put off his panic until later, he has to – Toni is – he has to keep her awake. He's cold, the wind is harsh through the broken window.

“Who - who was your first kiss?” 

“I don't 'member. Red-head, boarding school. It's cold.” 

“You're in shock. Help's coming. Hold on.”

“Wouldn't mind dying with you.”

“Well, I would.” Steve's hands are shaking, and he can't get them to stop. “Toni. Toni!” 

“What?” He has to say something to keep her attention.

“Marry me. Stay awake. Will you marry me?”

“Now? Wha-” Her eyes close again.

The sound of helicopter blades through the broken window barely penetrates as Steve presses his shirt to Toni's body.


	4. Chapter 4

The hospital staff, the best doctors Pepper can buy or bully, tell Steve and Pepper that Toni is being watched in case she has a heart attack in her sleep. Her pulse is weak. Waking her up before she's ready is likely to cause further problems. They've given her transfusions, but with the shrapnel still near her heart they can't intervene any further.

“It's amazing she can be so active with this in her chest cavity,” one of the surgeons says, looking at the wires and fittings visible under X-ray.

Steve looks away. He can't punch a doctor, much as he'd kinda like to. Toni would say bedside manner is moot when the patient can't hear you, anyway. Instead, he listens to the weak, too-fast beep of Toni's heart monitor and stares at his hands till Coulson drags him away to the Helicarrier to get some sleep. 

The Helicarrier is hovering a few miles from New York like an extremely paranoid and well-armed cloud. Steve arrives to a distracted welcome – everyone's busy monitoring the battle against Hydra and Johann Schmidt. They're on full alert, since Rhodey's camera shows Schmidt is definitely through the portal. Steve's sure he won't be able to rest, but turns out this body is tired enough to sleep no matter how much he worries. His dreams are fractured, menacing, full of the sensations of plummeting falls and shocking cold.

*  
He's woken up by a sustained shaking, more like an earthquake than an explosion.

Rhodey runs past him in full armour, and Steve follows him, in the opposite direction to all the non-combatants on board the Helicarrier. Some habits are too ingrained to break.

“Is it Schmidt?” Steve asks, panting.

“He's in custody – I put him there myself. Flew up here to debrief.”

The rumbling stops. There are no alarms, which is more unsettling than a full red alert.

“It was coming from Stores and Containment.”

It's pretty easy to spot the problem once they get there. Part of the hull is deformed, as if it had been ripped open and then bent back into shape. There's a light coming from one of the containment units, the three-inch-thick metal door of which is hanging askew, crumpled and almost off its hinges. Rhodey moves with surprising stealth for a guy in armour as they make their way along the corridor towards the light.

“Gentlemen, stay where you are,” a voice rings out, British and assured. “I am rather in the middle of something, and I'd hate to kill you accidentally.”

Magneto is standing with his arms spread, levitating two glowing green balls that Steve dimly recognises as reshaped versions of the rods he found in Hydra's weapons, taken into SHIELD custody while he was escorting Toni to the infirmary.

Steve grabs Rhodey's arm, the metal cold under his palm. If they attack Magneto while he's holding those things, it could be disastrous.

Magneto pulls his hands slowly apart, a look of intense concentration on his face. The room grows cold. The green balls bulge and split, leaving two silver orbs, two small metallic red balls about three inches across, and a gently falling black powder that clumps together like snow, sizzling slightly on the steel floor. 

Magneto sighs, looking suddenly older. He floats the sliver orbs together, reshaping them to form a box. He takes off his cloak by hand and walks over, wrapping the two red balls carefully in the heavy wool before putting them inside the box and sealing it. The box thunks to the ground. 

“Ill met by moonlight, Captain. You look like you should be in hospital. What a shame you had to disturb me.”

“Where are SHIELD?”

“Occupied. Mystique has been practising her Fury impression – don't try to communicate, I am not fool enough to leave your radios functioning.”

“Run, Rhodes,” Steve hisses.

“You'll never get away with this,” Rhodey says. It's as if no one on Steve's team has any sense of self-preservation.

“Oh look, a man encased in metal,” Magneto drawls. “Dear me. Ms Stark's work is so distinctive, it's a pity to have to damage it.”

“Rhodey, really, leave the room.” Too late – Magneto raises a hand and Rhodey floats into the air a short way, his armoured body unnaturally still.

“A friend of yours, Captain?” Magneto tilts his head. “How unwise. I'm going to do you the second favour I've performed this night, and not use this situation to its full advantage.”

The armour around Rhodey's left arm starts to buckle, bending between the elbow and wrist.

“No!” Steve yells.

Rhodey gasps, and there's a muffled crack. He drops to the deck like a puppet with its strings cut.

“What – what was the first favour,” Rhodey grits out, as Magneto turns to leave, the sliver box following him like a balloon on a string.

“Taking this nasty stuff off your hands, before temptation overcomes you and you kill yourselves with it. I'll be taking the interesting parts with me – oh, don't worry, you can keep the dross. I will not be recreating their poison.”

“Erik-” Steve starts, with no clear idea of what he's going to say.

“Goodbye, Captain. Use that name again, and you'll regret it.”

*

Rhodey and Toni are in adjacent hospital beds. Toni is looking steadily less pale and her pulse is getting stronger. Rhodey complains about what a pain in the ass she's going to be when she wakes up, but refuses to be moved. 

Fury is missing, presumed pissed. Mystique is gone, leaving a trail of security breaches behind her. Any other day this would be priority one, but today they have a bigger problem.

“We've lost Johann Schmidt.” Hill rolls the name around her mouth like a pebble. “I have an empty prisoner transport vehicle, eight missing soldiers and a message. He wants Captain America plus one, location coming soon. He'll trade us.”

The Avengers are down to three. Clint looks about as tired as Steve feels. Bruce has red-rimmed eyes from staring at computer screens, and he keeps taking off his glasses to polish them.

“He wants a hostage. He knows I'm easier to control that way.” Steve flexes his hands. “Guess he doesn't know about my condition yet. Those men are probably dead already, by the way.”

“I know,” Hill shrugs, “but...” 

“...It's worth a shot,” Steve finishes. “At least we can get a location. I might even be able to stick a tracker on him.”

“I'll put out the call, volunteers only.”

“I want Bruce.” Steve says, only realising the plan he's made after he says it. Bruce looks up at him quickly and puts his glasses back on.

“Schmidt won't let that happen,” Hill says.

“I think he will. He's only had, what, two days back to catch up? He still thinks I'm a prime target, and not that many people are aware of Hulk's double life. Schmidt won't know it's Bruce unless we tell him it is. Give him a haircut or something, disguise him.”

“Steve, this is a terrible plan,” Bruce says gently. “I can't control him well enough for what you're thinking.”

“I don't care if Hulk brings down the roof on all three of us. It's worth it to get Schmidt.” 

“Toni's still-”

“I know! I know. She'll understand.” He hopes she'll understand, when she wakes up. 

“You she'll forgive, I'll have to deal with her pumping Def Leppard into my lab at all hours.” Bruce shrugs, not so much agreeing as signalling defeat. “Unless SHIELD can think of anything better...”

“We're working on it, but this is... not the worst plan on the table,” Maria says grimly. “I'm just not sure we can contain Hulk afterwards.”

“At least he'll be easier to track than Schmidt,” Steve says, tired.

“I got some tranq arrows, I can follow along,” Clint says.

“Okay, good. Maria, could you get a team on the details, I think we need to grab a few more hours if we're going to do this. Bruce, Clint, be in your bunks in five.” He gets up, and Clint and Bruce shuffle out with him.

“I'll be sleeping at Nat's,” Clint amends. “The guards said she went kinda quiet a hour or so ago, I wanna be there in case... In case.”

“Noted. Hope she's...” Steve trails off and reaches up to pat Clint on the shoulder.

“Yeah. Sleep tight, Captain, don't let the Hydras bite.”

*

When he's pulled awake Steve has a sub-dermal tracker implanted during what is probably mid-afternoon tea, but counts as breakfast for him. The injection stings like hell, and he's hard-pressed not to scratch at it as Hill explains what Hydra want, and what resources she's cooked up to help him and Bruce. 

Johann Schmidt chose to meet up next to a boarding school, some way outside a small village called Doomsday. It seems he still has a low taste for ham-fisted melodrama, along with certain other characteristics. The switch for the eight hostages from the prison transport involves both groups walking, hands tied, between two dense thickets of trees. As soon as they reach the cover of the boughs on the other side Steve is grabbed and hooded, and a needle presses into his upper arm. He has enough time to hope that Bruce doesn't Hulk out prematurely.

What seems only a moment later, he's awake and through his hood he can tell that the light has faded. He can hear the sounds of the countryside at night, birds and insects. The chill of the air suggests they're on the same latitude as New York, and his bladder tells him it's the same day – he's only been out for a few hours. He can feel the bump of the implant still in his arm, just up from his wrist.

“Bruce?” He gets hit across the face for that, bewilderingly fast and without warning.

“Yup,” Bruce replies. This is followed by a sharp thump – Bruce getting the same treatment. They keep quiet after that.

After a short walk on a gravelled path they are unhooded in front of an abandoned church, which is probably supposed to be a metaphor. Steve is far past caring.

Steve and Bruce are walked at gunpoint into the whitewashed, clap-board building, the dust blooming up around their footsteps. It's dark for a moment, and then a handful of high-watt bulbs flicker to life, illuminating Schmidt at the altar. He's wearing army surplus fatigues dyed black, Hydra standard issue. His malformed head and hands are still a sickening, vivid red. A few men lurk in the shadows, out of sight of their leader.

“So I guess your vacation didn't clear up your skin problem,” Steve says. It's not like Schmidt is going to be easier on him if he's polite, and he wants Schmidt's attention away from Bruce.

Schmidt walks down from the altar, circling Steve with a cheated expression. 

“Captain... Well, this is a surprise. I am almost disappointed.” Schmidt bares his teeth, his lipless mouth gaping like a wound. “You are as weak in body as you are in mind. At least at our last meeting you were a worthy opponent.”

“Your people did this, some kind of beam technology. Blame them.”

“Hydra has grown clever. A fine tool, to take out so many of your little band of tin can heroes.” Schmidt stares at him, contemplatively. “It was like this before. You would surround yourself with lesser men, instead of stepping forward to stand above them. A fault.”

“I prefer to call it a saving grace. At least I kept my looks.”

“I will take care to change that by the end of this evening,” Schmidt promises. He cracks his neck sideways. “Your friend is hardly necessary now, but we must observe the forms.” 

Schmidt claps and two men come out to shackle Bruce's hands. “A hostage for your good behaviour.”

“I know the drill. You gonna give me a hostage for yours?”

“Enough.” Schmidt grabs him by the hair and shakes him, throwing him casually to the ground. It hurts more than it used to, but it's kinda familiar. Add a rat or two and he could be back in Brooklyn, 1930 through '43.

“So who made that beam? Not Hydra,” Steve says disparagingly, spitting out dust.

“Oh, it was Hydra. A fine young man in the science division. His reward was to be great, but alas, he proved too ambitious. No matter. Cut off one head and ten more will grow.” Behind him, Bruce makes a frustrated sound.

“The world has changed, Schmidt. People know about Hydra, and what they know is that Hydra get defeated. You don't have a fascist state backing you now. You've only got enemies. You really think you can keep recruiting?”

“You think I can't? People will always seek to be part of something greater, to bend to a stronger will. You've seen it a thousand times.”

Steve has, that's the kicker. It's not all he's seen, though, and he thinks of Natasha gently brushing mascara onto Toni's eyelashes, of Bruce quietly sorting trash for recycling, of New York's slow resurgence after the Chitauri.

“I have faith in the better angels of human nature.”

Schmidt throws back his head and laughs, a wet cracking sound like crushing an insect.

“People will fight to decide for themselves,” Steve says, raising his voice. “Not for any one creed or political line, but the right to say 'I'll do this, not that'. They'll fight to keep each other free.”

“Neither of us has much to do with 'nature', toy soldier.”

“Maybe not. You're not the weirdest thing we've run into, not any more.”

“An age where gods walk the earth. A fitting time for my return as the Red Skull. A lot of history to catch up on, since you threw me into that hell beyond the worlds.” 

“You did it to yourself,” Steve says firmly, remembering those last minutes in the sky.

Red Skull's blue eyes burn in their scarlet settings, his mind like a naked flame. The most terrifying thing about Schmidt is that he is not mad, has never become unhinged by the horrors he's seen. He is twisted and vengeful and hates Steve beyond reason. If he was insane he'd have an excuse.

“Eat your words.”

“You chose to become a monster. You're choosing the same thing now. Ever wanna choose something different?”

“Choice,” spits Red Skull viciously. “This is destiny!” He turns, his eye falling on Bruce. “I give you a _choice_ , toy soldier. You kneel and call me your better, or your comrade dies.”

Steve's already most of the way to his knees, and there's a gun to Bruce's head. It should be easy, but he can't get the words out. He opens his mouth, trying.

“Bruce...”

“Say it!” Schmidt screams. Steve makes a sudden, stumbling lunge up towards Schmidt, enough to get all Hydra's weapons trained on him, but he's too close to their leader for them to risk shooting. As that scarlet hand curls around his throat, he takes a final breath.

“No.”

There's a tearing sound from where Bruce was standing, but Steve can only see Schmidt's face, the furious realisation dawning there. The hand tightens around his neck, and Steve kicks out reflexively.

“What-” Schmidt snarls, and throws Steve aside like a played-out rag doll. 

“Surprise,” Steve whispers.

Hulk turns to look at him and there's blessed recognition in his eyes. Miracles happen to Steve sometimes, and he counts this as one of them.

“Smash Red Skull?” Steve asks, as loudly as he can through the bruising on his throat.

Hulk bellows. Hydra soldiers cover their ears, and Schmidt grabs a gun from one of them and starts, firing, shouting incomprehensibly in German.

Hulk runs towards him, angered by the bullets, and Schmidt has a second to look surprised before Hulk slaps him through a wall and out into the graveyard next to the church.

Steve raises his wrist to his mouth.

“If you can hear me, lock down perimeter around my location. Hulk has Schmidt, Hulk is out and he has Schmidt.” He just hopes Hydra didn't fry the implant while he was sleeping. Two-way communication had been too risky to add in, so he won't know if the message got through till it's too late.

“You can have him,” says one of the guards. “We're out of here.” The Hydra soldiers do appear to be packing up, rather than running futilely to the rescue,

“What?”

“Kills our best scientist for looking at him wrong, and now he's getting his ass kicked. Hydra will come to its glorious ascendancy without him.”

“Hail Hydra,” another soldier says, apparently unironically.

“You're not going to shoot me?” Steve asks, despite his better instincts.

“You're already beaten,” the apparent leader says – it could be another guy, difficult to tell through the masks. “You just haven't stopped moving yet.”

“Yeah? Well – fuck you,” Steve says, all out of sass.

The leader laughs, turning to follow the rest of his troops.

“And yet, Hydra prevails. Hail Hydra!”

Steve looks out of the gaping hole in the side of the building. Red Skull is still upright, barely. He pulls a knife and runs at the Hulk, stabbing at his face. Steve winces as one wild swing nearly hits Hulk's eye. Hulk roars and flings Red skull to the ground. A gravestone shatters with the force of the impact, and the sickening crunch of bones carries as far as the church. Red Skull doesn't get up again.

Steve grabs a length of copper piping from the hole in the side of the building and runs over. Schmidt is unmoving, his skin grey in the moonlight. When Steve cautiously checks, he's not breathing.

“He break,” Hulk says defiantly.

“It's okay, buddy, he was a really bad man. But he might get up again, so stick around?” Steve tries to look vulnerable. It's not hard.

Hulk grunts acknowledgement and sits down heavily. He stares into the trees. Schmidt continues not to move. Steve wonders if he's dead yet, not that he's planning to perform CPR or anything. The chill night air starts to seep through his coat. Eventually he catches a flash of light through the trees.

“Hulk, is Bruce in there? Only, I think SHIELD are coming, and you don't like helicopters.”

Hulk makes a frustrated sound.

“Hey, it's okay. I'll make sure he lets you out again soon. It's just been difficult recently.”

Hulk sighs. “Always no. No, no, no!” He bares his teeth, huge and square like porcelain roof tiles.

“I know.” Steve does understand, but Schmidt's shattered corpse is a reminder of why Bruce likes to be in control. “I'll talk to him.”

Hulk closes his eyes, giving one last frustrated huff before slowly, slowly starting to shrink. Bruce ends up lying on the ground, unconscious and looking rather cold in his nudity.

*

There's not much left of Schmidt, but Steve asks for kerosene and matches anyway. He stays on the scene and upright long enough to see the remains reduced to ashes, thinking that Magneto had a point about removing technological temptations, before he lets Maria shovel him into the Quinjet.

“Call for you, Captain,” she says, shoving her phone at him. “And please tell her I'm not a fucking secretary.”

“Steve? Steve!”

“Toni?”

“You bastard, Steve, I'm supposed to be the one who pulls suicidal shit!” 

“You had your turn.” 

“Excuse me, I didn't realise we were having a fucking contest – oh, Rhodey says hi.”

“Tell him I'm sorry about his arm.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“How – how are you?”

“I'm okay, pretty close to getting up and walking. You?”

“Bruised. Nothing broken.”

“Come over to the hospital, Pep can hook you up with a nice doctor with gentle hands – Rhodey, shut up. Steve... you know what.” You know what I'd say if this was a secure line, she means.

“You too,” Steve says softly. “I'll see you soon.”

When he gets back to the Helicarrier, the first person he sees is Natasha, standing with her shoulder against Clint's.

“You're back!” Steve says, feeling part of his world slide back into place. “That's swell.” He smiles at her.

“Factory settings restored,” she says dully, trying to smile back. Her voice is scratchy, hoarse from shouting. “Just before you left. We waited a while to check it stuck.”

“Do you know how?” Steve asks cautiously.

“Not yet,” she says grimly.

*

Thor comes back a week later on a stormy Thursday, leaving a perfect twining Asgardian bridge symbol etched into the sand of the most popular beach in Long Island. The first the Avengers hear of it is from Toni, who yells 'Thunder God at the beach, why do I have to learn these things from twitter? Jarvis, what are my satellites doing up there? When I get out of this bed I'm going to render them down for parts.”

All the Avengers, plus Coulson (who attends or ignores their meetings in a pattern Steve can't track), meet in the main lounge of the Tower to welcome Thor back and demand answers. Thor is dismayed to learn he missed the battle. It turns out, though, that his mother has a spell not unlike the one Hydra used.

“It is a divider, splitting self from self. Metal from flesh, past from present, inner from outer. With the breaking of their weapon, the barriers are lifted, but,” Thor looks sombrely at them, “you must undo the division yourself.” The room erupts.

“What does that even mean?” Clint says tightly. Natasha has the non-expression that means she dearly wants to hurt someone.

“If anyone says 'unified consciousness' I'm going to throw up,” Toni announces.

“And yet, Toni, you suffered least from the division,” Thor points out.

“The suit and I are one, didn't you hear? I didn't mean it quite so... mystically,” she says distastefully. “Maybe it doesn't work so well on inanimate objects.”

Bruce is very, very still. Terrifyingly still, like the moment before a mine goes off. “And are we sure that the,” he pulls a face “spell is broken? I hate that word, can we call it something more... accurate?”

“Energy weapon effects? A spade is a spade. Imagine this is an RPG, if it helps.”

“From what I saw, Hulk is back. He knew me. And, uh, he said hi, and could you let him out more often,” Steve says. “He's as stable as he ever was, and he saved my ass, so.” He shrugs.

"I don't want to let him out. I'm never going to want him in here, in me. He is a mistake." Bruce takes a deep breath. "But I suppose... mistakes can bring gifts, sometimes. He did help save the world." Bruce sounds dubious.

“I thought we were beyond these little problems. He's the jolly green giant, kids love him, cut the guy some slack.” Toni waves a hand dismissively. “Any other cures short of 'self-acceptance'?” She makes little air quotes around the phrase.

“Time, perhaps. The effects should already be greatly weakened.” Thor casts a doubtful glance at Steve. “For the most part.”

“Useless. What kind of gods are you?” Natasha snarls.

“Nat-”

“No. I drained my poisoned chalice, I've taken their burdens and made them into gifts. I am what I am. What more is there to accept before I can be secure in my own damned skin?”

Thor is the first to fill the long silence. He's brave, Steve will give him that, because Steve doesn't think he can look Natasha in the eye right now.

“Your worth, my lady. Dark deeds or no, you are atoning.”

“You're a valuable asset, Ms Romanov, and not just for your training,” Phil says, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your qualities can't be built or installed, or your former employers would have taken over the world.”

“What do you need from us?” Steve asks. “You've saved more lives than I can count, including mine. Whatever you need, I owe you more than that. Both of you,” he amends, looking at Bruce, who flushes slightly. He understands, as Steve meant him to, that the debts Steve owes to Hulk are also owed to Bruce.

“I can't handle this.” Natasha turns to leave the room, but Toni stands in her way.

“Suck it up, Widow, before we have to do a circle of trust or hug it out or some shit. Bruce, don't think I don't see you sneaking out, we all hate feeling our feelings, but this is for the team. Get back here.”

Toni loses her momentum once everyone stops trying to escape. Steve watches her cast around for something to say that will fix the whole thing. Toni treats people like machines, but she loves her machines so usually it doesn't seem as weird as it does right now.

“Natasha...”

“Oh, this is going to be great.” Natasha folds her arms.

“Fine. Whatever. Just don't leave or I won't have anyone to ask for tampons. Bruce, I built you a goddamn lab. You'd better stick around till we've built at least one death-ray together or I'll, I'll cut off our friendship bracelets.”

“Not the bracelets,” Bruce says, his mouth quirking up on one side. Neither of them are wearing any jewellery. Steve chalks another mystery up to cultural differences.

“Clint has tampons,” Natasha says. “Problem solved.”

“Wha- no, none of your Jedi mind tricks.” Toni points at her accusingly. “You're an essential nut in this bunch of nutcases, in case you hadn't noticed, and you don't get that just for being a weapon.”

“They're for staunching puncture wounds,” Clint says evenly. “Natasha... I've been with you longest, I guess.” Natasha has her most impassive face on. “And I don't know if you want to hear this, 'cause I have no idea how you saved yourself last time, what do I know, but... you are not just steel and silk. You're not only what you've done. And your core is strong enough to build a new America on.”

Natasha... Steve doesn't know what the look on her face is. Something very old, and very young. 

“Bruce,” she says slowly, “what's it like? When you... turn.”

“Like a scream. Like every cell is screaming.” 

“Mine's like a box, fitted to my skin. Box does the work and I move around inside it.” She looks at him for a long moment. “We could talk about this. Share solutions.”

“Shower, sleep,” Bruce agrees. “I have a suspicion this will be an easier problem when we've had time to think.”

Natasha nods once, sharply, and heads for the door towards her suite. Clint walks beside her, a metre or two apart as they leave. Coulson peels off his wall to follow. No-one tries to stop them.

“One day I'm gonna find out what the deal is with those three.” Toni has the 'take-it-apart-to-see-how-it-ticks' expression that Steve has learned to deflect away from human beings.

“I doubt it,” Bruce says.

“Thor,” Steve says quietly. “I don't suppose you know why I haven't... grown back.”

“I do not, Steve. I am sorry.”

Toni waits until after everyone's gone, doing something on a screen that Steve can recognise by now as 'trying to look busy'.

“Are you-”

“I want to take you to bed,” Steve interrupts. “If you'd like.”

“Yes, just – are you going to be okay?”

“I don't know.” He feels off-balance, fragile. “I want to stop thinking about it for a while.”

“I hear you. My room?”

“Yeah.”

Steve follows her, lost in his head. As the door closes behind him Toni looks intently at his face, worried. He must look as frayed as he feels. Toni cares for him like he's one of her machines, like he's a tender but resilient creation.

They keep their clothes on. Steve is dully aware that Toni is recovering from a serious injury, that the stitches marching crookedly along the skin under her ribcage won't go away for a while. He runs his hands through her hair instead, and breathes in the scent of machine oil and clean sweat, of honey and maple, that Toni carries around with her.

“Hold me down,” he says, before he's even aware what he wants. 

Toni wraps a hand round each of his wrists, pinning them up by his head before meeting his eyes in a silent question. Steve nods, and she leans down, putting more of her weight into pinning him. She lays her whole body down on top of him, breast to breast, hip to hip. She is indisputably there, surrounding him, and it's as if he's never been in ice, as if he's never felt the cold night air in a graveyard. 

He blinks, and realises he's crying.

“Steve. Steve.” Toni slaps him lightly on the cheek, just enough to bring him, blinking, to the surface. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yeah, I'm okay.” He moves his hands so that their fingers interleave, holding on to her.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve wakes up late – later than Toni, which is rare – and scrambles some eggs in the empty kitchen while he tries to figure out what to do with himself.

He can't intrude on Bruce and Natasha. They are both intensely private people, and it's going to be difficult enough for them to talk freely even to each other. Even if they would welcome him in, his problem seems different. Physical, a matter of gristle and sinew.  
He grinds pepper over his eggs, noticing the extra weight of the mill in his hands, the added strength he has to use to turn it.

If his problem is being split in two, the two halves are his two bodies, past (present) and present (past). Maybe if he relearns this body... well, he can't see what good it'll do exactly, but it'll keep him occupied.

The mansion has a superfluity of training rooms. Steve suspects that wherever a room held bad memories, Toni ripped it out and put in sprung hardwood flooring and punching bags, concrete and blast screens. Most of the gyms, firing ranges, sparring rings and weights rooms are clustered around Howard Stark's old office, which got knocked through into the next room to make a test range with human-shaped targets. Surprisingly, none of them are wearing moustaches. Toni is not particularly subtle in her dislikes. 

Steve heads for his training room, but stops at the door. Thinking about it, there's not much in there he's going to be able to use except the mat. The weights are too heavy, the punch-bag is specially reinforced, and – he steps inside to check this – the pull-up bars are too high to reach. 

_Well, darn it_ , he thinks ruefully. He doesn't want to go to one of the other rooms, where someone else might be training. Push-ups it is, then.

He struggles to get himself off the ground. Sit-ups are probably easier – no, not so much.

“How the hell am I supposed to exercise, then,” he asks the empty room. It comes out wrong, too bitter.

Stretches are... all right. He can still touch his toes, though that might be a side effect of being closer to the ground. 

“Hey, sweet cheeks. No, don't stand up,” Toni protests as Steve straightens up, blushing. “I was enjoying the view.”

“You like my ass?” Steve says, raising an eyebrow. It's kind of a scrawny ass, these days.

“The things I would do with that ass...”

“Really?”

“Why, do you want to? Have you tried putting a couple of fingers up there? Cause it's a variable thing, some guys love it, some-”

“We're in a training room.” Steve would like there to be one room in the mansion that he doesn't have inappropriate flashbacks in.

“You want to take this somewhere more private?”

Steve really should train. He really should. 

“Your room or mine?” he asks.

Then again, Toni is certainly going to make him break a sweat. It counts. Toni grins as if she can read his mind.

Toni has to avoid putting stress on her stitches, so Steve ends up curled around Toni on his side, eating her out while she sucks his cock. It turns out he can make Toni lose her concentration – and her muscle control – when he presses slow circles into her clit with his tongue. Obviously, he can't stop now, not with her coming apart so spectacularly. 

“Shake for me, darlin',” he murmurs, the pulse in her thighs pounding by his ears. He crooks two fingers up inside her and sucks on her clit, making her gasp.

“Eat me, Rogers – oh, fine, if you're gonna do _that_ -” Her knees tremble, and he pins one of them down so he doesn't lose his place. Like a book in the wind, but if books were like this libraries would be banned.

Later, after Toni's come down from her orgasm, Toni finds out Steve does indeed enjoy having a couple of fingers up his ass, especially when he's getting a blowjob at the same time. He doesn't tell her he'd already tried it, once, with Bucky, mostly because there's no way to bring it up that isn't immensely awkward. It's better in a bed, he'll admit that much.

*

“I had a look at your bloodwork,” Toni says without preamble the next morning, as soon as she's drained the cup of tar-like sludge she calls coffee. “Read your files. The serum's still in there. If we can find my Dad's notes on the Vita-Ray, which is still a stupid name, we might be able to-”

“Yes,” Steve interrupts.

“You sure? I haven't told anyone else yet, you could just...”

“Just what? Rot away, be useless?”

“Be safe.” Toni smiles crookedly. “Get your life back.”

“You said once, you didn't want to be taken care of. Don't you dare, don't you dare try to do that to me.” He's blindingly angry, just for a moment, thinking about the hospital rooms he's waited outside.

“Well, fair enough,” Toni says brusquely, in the way that she thinks covers up her concern but renders it painfully obvious. Steve reaches out, taking hold of her wrist.

“Toni... Please. If it can't be done, I'll live, but please look? For me.”

“Well yeah.” Toni sounds shocked. “Of course.”

“Thank you.” It's strange, having that selfish hope lodged in his chest like a blown glass bubble.

Toni invites him along to search through Howard's notes. Howard's papers, his prototypes and treasures, are all boxed up in the basement – one of the basements, anyway. 

“I never bothered having them scanned. What isn't obsolete is too hot for electronic storage.” Toni flicks a switch, and fluorescent lights flicker on and start to whine at an annoying pitch. Toni seems not to hear the sound, wandering through the stacks of boxes and looking at the labels in firm capitals on the side.

“Stane must have boxed this up after the crash – it's his handwriting. Too recent, we want the war years.”

“Over here,” Steve says. There's a date, 1944-(illegible), and the first thing in the box is a photo of - 

It's his funeral. It's Peggy in black, at his funeral. There are other pictures underneath, sombre faces and Dugan, without his hat, and a statue of Steve in uniform he prays has been demolished.

“Is it a funeral if there's no body, or is it something else?” he asks, his voice thin.

“Memorial service,” Toni says, matter of fact. “Pep had to stop Ob- Stane from throwing one for me while I was in Afghanistan, apparently. Try the next box, that one's too late.”

“Yeah.” He seals it up again, carefully, like sticking the band-aid back on a scrape after ripping it off.

“Paydirt,” Toni says. “Dr Erskine's name, front and centre. And this is handwritten, the sneaky bastard. No typing, no record.”

“There were such things as carbon paper,” Steve objects.

“For my – for his handwriting, you'd need a fucking psychic. Lucky for us, you have me.”

*

Steve rapidly gets bored watching Toni read, and starts poking around through Howard's photo albums. There's a kind of pleasurable pain to it, seeing the Howling Commandos in peacetime, growing old. He finds pictures of Toni's mother, Maria of the olive skin and curvaceous figure, wearing a red dress that looks like an invitation to riot. Howard may have been a showman, but her mother is clearly the source of Toni's public presence, that combination of look-at-me and touch-me-not, seductive and commanding at the same time. In some ways the armour is a crystallisation of that presence; beautiful, curved and deadly.

“You crazy fucker, what in hell did you think you were doing?” Toni says angrily to the papers in front of her.

“Hmm?” Steve says.

“OSHA would stage a fucking armed raid if anyone pulled anything this shitty in my labs,” Toni explains, frowning. “Also, this has to be wrong. I need to bring Bruce in to check the figures. The 'Vita-Ray' formula puts out enough radiation to turn you into a three-headed corpse. I would be really surprised in anyone in the same room with that thing had normal kids.”

“Well, Howard was in the room. Maybe you're right.”

“I'm not feeling the love here,” Toni says absently, absorbed in numbers. “Can I tell Bruce?”

“Of course.”

Bruce looks doubtful, shading towards alarmed, but he only asks Steve once whether this is really what he wants. He quickly gets absorbed in Toni's transcriptions of Howard's notes.

“Our best bet seems to be rebuilding the old chamber exactly as it was. Identical conditions, identical effects...” He looks dubious even as he says it. Steve doesn't really see the problem, but there's no point in calling in an expert and not listening to them.

“That sounds like a terrible plan.” Toni says cheerfully. “Let's try it – we can probably learn something from building the thing, anyway.”

The specs on the chamber make Toni purse her lips in dissatisfaction. Bruce argues for a different core element that will produce some other form of radiation. As far as Steve understands, it's strong enough to activate the serum but weak enough that Steve will survive, and probably not lose all his hair, if it goes wrong. 

“Yeah, cause that worked so well for you,” Toni says.

“Fuck you,” Bruce says, eerily calm. 

“Steve has dibs, but I can fit you in February. Sorry, man.” Toni gives Bruce a genuinely apologetic nod. “I just think the wavelength is key in rearranging the beta barrel.”

“Which you haven't tested.”

“Which I haven't tested, because it's impossible to isolate.” She waves a hand at Steve.

“Couldn't you just irradiate part of me?” Steve asks. “A hand, or something.”

“Technically, yes,” Toni says. Bruce shakes his head. 

“I've... seen a similar experiment. You would probably end up with one really strong hand and heart failure trying to cope with the altered energy requirements. Even if you survived, replicating the dose over the rest of your body would be incredibly difficult. The decay is probabilistic-”

“So that's a no, got it,” Steve says shortly. “You guys want something to eat?”

“Anything with soy sauce. Actually, bring me a bottle of soy and some pita bread – what, it's my thinking food,” Toni says, as Steve and Bruce pull identical disgusted faces. “Bigots.”

*

Steve assembles Toni's disgusting bread/sauce order, Bruce's dried fruit, and some carrot sticks on the off chance that either of them can be tricked into eating vegetables. He comes back just in time to catch a shouting match.

“We can't just buy radioactive isotopes!” Bruce is looking a little frayed. Steve considers calling Natasha in on this.

“Sure we can. Just cause you can't-”

“Well, now I know you never worked on nuclear weapons. Trust me on this, you are not equipped to handle it even if some madman on the black market does sell you some crapped-out ex-Soviet-”

“No, but I absolutely will be. Look, we tweak an x-ray machine - “

“Absolutely not. Toni, would you step back from the fucking intellectual conundrum for a second and think. We're going to expose Steve to whatever you jury-rig out of scraps.”

“I'm aware of that, Doctor Banner. And I don't like your tone.”

“I know you can be reckless with your own life, but-”

“Enough.” Toni's voice is almost a hiss. “This is the one thing Steve's ever asked of me. He's never asked me for anything before. So I'm going to give it to him if I have to make a solo raid on Three Mile Island for the parts.”

“Hi, guys,” Steve says loudly, walking in. “It's been seventeen hours. You're either going to sleep, spar or meditate until I unlock this lab, which will be in twelve hours time. Argue, and I'm calling Natasha.”

“I'm dating my fucking mother,” Toni complains. 

“A mental image I could do without,” Bruce says snippily, “no offence to your mother.”

“She was a swell lady, I'm sure,” Steve says evenly. “Now buzz off, Doctor, you need a break.” Bruce peels himself off his stool and groans. 

“Oh ye gods and little fishes, my back. Toni, I'm buying you new furniture.”

“As long as it's red, knock yourself out. No sex swings in the shop though, Dummy breaks them.”

Bruce starts laughing silently.

“Not like-! He tries to play on them, he's just a baby. A clumsy, stupid, perpetual infant, go back to your charging station, I'm talking about you not at you.” Dummy tilts his head and whirrs.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” Bruce says, smiling.

“C'mon, Toni, we're going to the gym,” Steve orders, and surprisingly, Toni follows.

“Get me the punchbag,” Toni orders, walking into her training room, and one lowers silently from the ceiling. She walks over to the shelves and pulls on a pair of gloves.

“Don't want to spar?”

“I don't have the control right now. M'not giving you a black eye, Fury would kill me. Or put you in a PSA on domestic violence.” She fixes the punchbag with a steely eye and hits out, straight from the shoulder.

“Wider stance,” Steve says softly, just to let her know he's behind her. She doesn't answer, but shifts her feet.

Eventually Toni drops her hands, breathing hard.

“Okay. I think that'll do. Wanna spar? Might be my last chance to beat you.”

“Tough talk, lady,” Steve says, letting a little more Brooklyn into his voice. “You wanna put your money where your mouth is?”

“What, _you_ want to bet?” Toni jokes.

“I'll bet you one true answer.” Steve wants to know if Toni's really going to buy radioactive material – illegally – in order to fix him. He's ninety percent sure it was a joke. Ninety-five. Maybe eighty-five.

“Interesting.” Toni's smile slips from her eyes, leaving a hollow smirk. “Accepted. Gloves?”

“No.”

Steve remembers sparring, but it's like he's been watching someone else fight. His reactions are slow, even though his muscles recall sequences and forms. He can't adapt. Toni taps him open-palmed, hitting his jaw, sternum, ribs. He gets her hip with a misjudged kick, too hard. She crowds in close and he sidesteps, ducks, tries to get behind her.

“Running away?”

“Keeping – mobile-” He taps the side of her head, barely dodges a hip-check.

Toni drops, using a sweeping kick that takes him out at the knees. He winces and raises his hands, conceding defeat.

“So I get one question,” Toni says, offering him a hand up. “Why do you want the serum back so badly?”

Steve takes a minute to think about it, long enough for Toni to start looking impatient. There are so many reasons – some of them pettier than others, once he examines them. 

“I have... a duty, that I need that body to carry out,” he starts slowly. “I have a reputation to uphold, as a representative of my country. There are people only I can help, for better or worse, and I want the power to help them. And the world would be fine without me, but I'm not giving Hydra the satisfaction of taking me out. If I go, it'll be on my terms.”

Toni gives him a long look.

“That's it?”

“And... it's my god-damned body.” The anger in his voice shocks him. He smiles weakly, trying to cover it. “It's mine.” 

Toni nods.

“Sounds about right. And what question were you going to ask me?”

“That wasn't part of the deal.”

“When you think the only way to get a straight answer is to trick it out of me, it makes me curious,” Toni says, her voice clipped. She's pissed, Steve realises.

“Fine. I overheard you and Bruce.” Steve tries not to think about Toni saying _he's never asked me for anything_ , about the desperation in her voice. “You're not really going to – you wouldn't break the law to make the Vita-Ray, right?”

“I don't think I need to. I think if we get SHIELD on this and tell them what I need to get Captain America up and running, they'll give it to me. I don't want to, because I don't trust them to be hands-off where super-soldier serum is concerned, but it's an option.”

“Bruce wouldn't like it.”

“No, he would not. Which is why giving him something else to get worked up about seemed a good idea, if he's going to keep helping us.” Like most of Toni's ideas, it makes perfect sense from a certain viewpoint.

“If it does come to that, we should call Rhodey,” Steve says unwillingly. “Get the Air Force in as a bidder, drive the price of cooperation down.” The whole thing sounds dangerous to him, the kind of murky politics that can suck you under like a quicksand.

“I sometimes forget that good doesn't mean nice,” Toni says, staring at him. “Yeah, that could work. But it's a last resort, so... who knows. Maybe next week we can confiscate a nuclear warhead from the Brotherhood or something.”

That shouldn't sound like a good scenario. Steve takes Toni's hand, pulling himself in to lean back against her. Some things are better said without eye contact.

“Thanks. Even if it never works... thanks.”

“Save it. I – this is nothing, really.” Toni puts an arm around him, pressing a kiss to the back of his head. "It's almost funny... I used to think that there must be some perfect thing I could do or say to get you to love me. Some amazing sex or a gift or a piece of my soul that would make up for all the shitty parts of me and give me a clean slate."

“I like your slate the way it is. I love you like this.”

“Yeah, I know. That's the funny part.”

Steve twists around to face her. 

“Toni...” It's impossible to prove a negative. Steve is probably going to spend the rest of her life convincing Toni he isn't going to leave her.

“You love me. I get it. I love you too, impossible as you are.”

*

Steve goes to his training room again the next morning, dutiful and trying not to dread the evidence of his own weakness. Doesn't seem like there's much he can help with downstairs, and he feels obscurely that if he's going to give this body back, it should be in as good a condition as he can get it. Not that he's giving back to anywhere in particular, except perhaps God, but it seems only polite. 

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Do you have any videos of martial arts training? Something slow, not too energetic.” Martial arts were made to give the little guy a fighting chance, after all.

A previously unsuspected projector descends from the ceiling and presents Steve with a range of options.

After a couple of false starts, Tai Chi turns out to be pretty relaxing. The instructor in the video looks about seventy-five, with a serenity clearly born of having ceased to give two shits about anyone's opinion.

“Raise your right palm, and breathe deeply.”

Steve does so. He's suddenly struck by the absence of coughing. 

“Pause the video, please. And, uh, call Toni if I start breathing strangely.”

“Captain, this may be unwise,” Jarvis says, a little less smoothly than usual. Steve uncovers the rarely-used treadmill in the corner, sets it going, dials it down to a speed that won't send him flying into a wall Chaplin-style, and starts running.

His muscles complain, but his breathing is fine. He remembers this body, he remembers how it felt running around behind everyone else at boot camp, the tightness like a band around his chest. It wasn't like this.

“I don't get it,” Toni says, when he tries to explain. 

“I think I'm getting better. I think the serum is still working.”

“Well, then I should cancel that uranium shipment. How?”

“I don't know, but I think it has to do with all the training. You build muscle by damaging it, so it regrows stronger, right?”

“In a loose sense, yes.”

“And the serum promotes rapid healing. What if it just... over-repairs?”

“And the radiation is a way of producing massive tissue damage, forcing it to speed up the process.” Toni slaps her hand against her desk, in frustration. “Those bastards. Couldn't fucking _write it down_ , no, they had to – and wait, this means we don't even need the – those _bastards_.”

“That's good, right? If we don't need extra... things.”

“Well yeah, but... I'm sorry, too long in the zone. But it's almost certain they didn't need the amount of radiation they actually exposed you to. It was just a way of speeding it up. Making it look good.” Venom drips from Toni's voice.

“Maybe not just that. I mean, there was a war on. There was a sense of urgency. I can see how they thought they were doing the right thing.” Steve is trying to avoid Howard Stark's name, but it's clear to both of them where that idea had come from.

“Don't defend him to me.” Toni turns to look at him. “You could have died. I would never have met you, I would never have even known your name-”

“But you did. We did. And now you're going to fix me.”

“Restore you, let's say. You're pretty good as you are – solved this one, didn't you?”

*

Steve closes his eyes on a red world, on the rosy, anxious faces of his friends tucked away behind cloudy perspex shielding. The tinted goggles Bruce found are supposed to protect his eyes from the beam, but even through the glass and his shut eyelids he can see pure white. It's cool, no sun-like warmth, though his skin itches as though he's been wrapped in hessian. The light dims from white to orange, to dull scarlet, and he opens his eyes again, sitting up gingerly from the reclining chair scrounged from Toni's other, other lab.

Jarvis breaks the silence. 

“Captain Rogers is three point four centimeters taller than he was at the beginning of the last scan. His muscle mass has increased and lung function appears improved.”

Steve sighs, a wave of pure relief rolling over him.

“And when I get that feeling, I need, ooh, sexual healing-” Clint croons. Toni throws a scrunched-up ball of calculations at him, but she's grinning from ear to ear. 

“Jarvis, full readings to my and Bruce's terminal.” 

Rebirth starts slow but picks up as it goes along. The more muscle Steve has, the more he can stretch and overwork it, activating more of the serum. He equals Toni's height, then passes it.

Steve eats, trains, dozes, eats again. Bruce pays him back for that steak dinner several times over. He sketches himself in the mirror, overlaying his old self with iterations of growth, watching his body put on muscle and bone, feeling his mind alter. He's no smarter, no more moral or persuadable than he ever was. He just sees consequences more. His body is more apt to answer to his mind. He's always been here, serum or no.

The first time round, eighty years or eighteen months ago, everything had happened at once. The pain like a lightning bolt then is slowed down now, a drawn-out, bone-deep ache that no drugs can touch.

Staying warm helps, so he swaddles himself in blankets next to the radiator in his room, dozing fitfully. Toni spends more time in his room, spends more nights with him. It's amazing how much difference it makes not to be alone when he wakes up, shifting in pain, in the small hours of the morning.

*

A few weeks on, Toni looks through his sketchbook, lingering here and there.

“You should make it into a flip book,” she says, looking at a study of Steve's back that he'd drawn with the help of Jarvis and a strategically placed camera. “See Captain America grow before your eyes.”

“I'm just glad to be able to reach the high shelves again.” His growth is tapering off now, as he nears his former strength. There are a lot of theories about whether his second 'rebirth' will leave him stronger, weaker, quicker or slower to heal. 

Toni sums it all up.

“There are no precedents and no experiments. Wild mass guessing; no-one has a clue what's going to happen. You probably won't grow wings.”

“Anything more specific?”

“You'll probably be much as you were. You're probably going to get laid in the near future. I'll hire you a tarot reader if you want more than that.”

“That'll do just fine, Ms. Stark.” Steve smiles lazily at her.

“Shame I can't hold you down any more,” Toni says airily.

“You could in the suit, I bet.” Steve looks up when Toni doesn't reply. She looks hopeful, with a wary streak like he's about to take something away from her.

“I could, or I can?”

“You can, if you want to. I mean... would it be strange for you?” You nearly died in that armour, he doesn't say. 

“I think the word you're looking for is hot, and it would – hell, it's something I've been thinking about since I made the Mark III. I asked Pepper once but... that's not where this conversation is going. I'll make a few modifications – Iron Woman 6.9, what do you think?”

“We're going to need a stronger bed.”

For some reason, Toni snorts a laugh. “We haven't even shown you that movie yet! I can't explain; Jarvis, remind me to show Steve Jaws next movie night.”

“Is it pornography? Because it's not funny to surprise me with that.” Steve fold his arms. Toni laughs harder.

“Oh, you're good for the soul,” she says, wiping her eyes. “No, it's not. So, suit, holding you down. You want to fuck me, or...”

“Surprise me,” Steve says.

“Are you challenging me? Cause that is seriously inspiring, I'm telling you. I may need to spend some quiet time in the shower being inspired by that.”

She phones him in the evening, while he's testing out his strength on some reinforced punchbags.

“Come over to the workshop. I've got something to show you. Plan to be busy for the next couple of hours.” She hangs up before he can reply.

He knows what's going to happen. The anticipation is sweet as molasses in the back of his throat. He showers quickly, changes into some nice clothes, then into a tight threadbare T-shirt and sweatpants he doesn't mind losing, just in case.

The lights are dim in the corridor to Toni's workshop, and it's dark when he opens the door. 

“Toni?” He takes a few steps in, listening for movement.

The lights go on, and Iron Woman activates, shutting the door behind him with one red-gold hand.

“Hello, Captain.” He's not used to hearing the metallic tones of Toni's voice through the external speakers – they usually talk over the headset, her voice undistorted.

“Iron Woman. You look – different.” The armour is more gold than red, the crotch bulging, more complicated than the usual protective plate.

“You like it?”

“I – yeah.” His mouth is dry. He wants to beg her to pin him down, but he also wants her to just – take him, without asking. “So, uh, what did you have in mind?”

For an answer she walks over – she's taller than him again and the density of the metal is palpable – and places a hand on his chest. Palm out, the repulsor unit pressed against his heart, a quiet threat. He shudders.

“I thought you'd like this,” she says, all inflection distorted out of her voice. She pushes him backwards with just that one hand, steering him till his back hits concrete.

“Hands up. And give me a colour.”

“Green,” Steve says sincerely, his voice strangled, putting his hands up so his wrists are level with his face. “So damn green.”

She doesn't answer, instead wrapping an armoured hand around each of his wrists and pushing them back, pinning them against the wall.

“I have a surprise for you,” she says, and there's a complicated metallic sound. He looks down and shit, that is definitely not standard issue. It's red, hard, he can't even see a seam in the metal, it looks like it just grew there. The armour has a dick and he is so fucked. Is going to be. In the part of his mind that isn't caught up in the moment, he appreciates that Toni made it relatively small, because there's 'shit, that's going in my ass' and there's 'dammit, that's bigger than _me_ '.”

“Nnngh,” says Steve. He doesn't even try to escape.

“First time?” She knows it is.

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly, before remembering he should probably say a little more. “Why, you disappointed?”

“Oh, you're still going to love it, it'll just take a little longer to ease you in.” She lets go of one wrist, and he brings it across to join the other, so she can pin them both with one hand.

The other hand goes to his pants, pulling the waistband down. His cock springs free, slapping up against his abdominal muscles. He moans at the sensation of freedom.

“You want to keep these pants?” The armour tightens a little around his wrists, and even through the distortion Steve can tall Toni is turned on, her vowels slow and thickened.

“No.”

“Hold still.” She rips them apart at the centre seam, using both hands. He keeps his hands above his head, watching the fabric shred like tissue paper under those powerful hands. The metal is lukewarm against his thighs, not chilling but enough to remind him that this is a machine.

Toni does something complicated with the fingers of her right hand, her left going up to pins his wrists again. Lube glistens on her fingers.

“Spread 'em, soldier.”

She pushes his knees apart with her leg, pressing up between his thighs. He hooks one leg up around her waist, bringing the other up to wrap awkwardly around her thigh. Her hand traces the curve of his buttock, moving up until one slick metal finger is pressed against his hole.

“Good boy,” she croons. “God, you're flexible.” She pushes in, the metal shockingly cold inside him for a moment. He gasps. “Make all the noise you want, by the way.”

“Toni...” She crooks her finger, and sparks of pleasure flare up his spine. His legs tighten around her involuntarily, the edges of armour plating digging into his skin. Every one of his muscles quivers with the effort of not moving, holding himself up between the wall and the armour.

“Oh, look at you,” she says quietly, with something like awe in her voice. 

“Don't just _look_ ,” Steve gasps.

“Pushy.” If there is an inflection, the suit flattens it out. She takes her time stretching him open. Steve's pinned arms start to ache a little.

“Okay, feet on the floor,” Toni says, removing her fingers with a slick, obscene sound. Steve puts his feet down, legs shaking.

“Wait a minute,” he says, reluctantly. “Gotta...” He rolls his shoulders, loosening his muscles. “Okay.”

“You want to sit down?” Toni puts her hands round his shoulders, ready to support him.

“I'm fine.”

Toni flips up her faceplate. “Sure?” Steve can't help but smile – fantasies aside, it's good to see her face.

“I'm sure. How are you going to fuck me?”

“Say 'fuck' again, and I might come right here.” Toni pulls him in for a kiss. Steve puts his arms round her waist, making a frustrated sound when all he can find is metal.

“Here-” She pulls a hidden switch, and suddenly Steve can peel away part of the armour around her lower back, getting his hands on warm, soft Toni, smelling faintly of oil but mostly of sweat.

Toni pulls him down to the floor, till he's lying on his back with her kneeling over him, an arm either side of his head. She doesn't lower the faceplate again.

“Caught you,” she says, her voice low and rich. 

“Other way around,” Steve replies, equally quiet. He parts his legs, lifting his knees. Toni shifts her weight and, yes, that's her cock pressed against Steve's ass.

“Yeah?”

“Yea- “ Steve loses his breath as she pushes her hips forward, stretching him open. It seems like it keeps going forever, slow and inexorable, balancing Steve right on the edge of pleasure and pain.

“Steve?” Toni asks, slowing.

“Keep, keep moving,” he stutters. “S'good.” Eventually she stops, deep inside him and it's like being pinned in the most intimate way possible, invasive and total.

“Move,” he pleads.

“Steve, I, I may have forgotten to tell you,” Toni whispers into his hair. “So... surprise.”

The vibration starts as a slow oscillation, tipping him over the stretched edge of sensation into shivering pleasure. 

“You-”

“I did,” she agrees.

“...more.” 

More is what he gets, a strong buzz that makes him rock his hips up, trying to get friction. He brings up a hand to his cock and two strokes are enough, he's gone, gone, gone.

When he peels open his eyes, the first thing he sees is his own come, streaked across Toni's breastplate, white on gold. Toni is braced above him, the vibrator mercifully off.

“Wow,” he says, unable to think of anything more eloquent, his body still echoing pleasure like a plucked guitar string.

“Hey, Steve.” Toni smiles down at him, her brown eyes fever-bright. Hold still a moment-” Steve clenches his teeth as Toni pulls out, the momentary pain somehow sharp and dull at the same time. It fades quickly, leaving a dull, pleasant ache.

“Okay?”

Steve laughs. “Pretty amazing, actually. Anything I can do for you?”

“God, please. Just let me-” Toni starts unhitching the armour around her crotch, removing it one plate at a time. Steve watches till he can figure out the system, and starts helping, slowly uncovering her thatch of black curls, the pale flesh of her inner thighs. He leans in and buries his head between them. Toni's hands, still armoured, cradle his head.

“Yeah, that's-” Toni's so wet already, Steve doesn't have to warm her up, just slides two fingers into her while he flicks his tongue against her clit. She clenches around his fingers, taking her hands away from his skull and planting them firmly on the floor.

“Yes, yes... Oh.” She comes with one long exhalation, relaxing supine on the floor. Steve gives her a minute, gentling a thumb up the crease between her thigh and pubic mound, where the skin is as thin as tissue.

“Bed?” He suggests, when the floor starts to feel uncomfortably cool.

“Give me one minute to get out of this - “ Toni walks over to stand on a raised platform, and raises her arms. Steve's too spent to appreciate the robot-assisted strip-tease the way he normally would, but he watches closely. He's not dead, after all.

“So what kind of block did you have on the repulsors?”

“The what? Oh, those are just glass. I didn't even put any wiring in the gauntlets. God, that would be the stupidest way to die, malfunctioning weaponry during sex games.”

Steve yawns his agreement.

“Your room or mine? If you want to sleep together tonight – sleep-sleep, I mean.”

“We should just share a room, this is ridiculous.” Steve says, his mouth on autopilot. “I keep having to guess which bedroom to sleep in.”

“Cranky, yet decisive. I've got a spare suite midway between the two, will that do?”

Steve never tells anyone exactly how he and Toni decided to move in together. He's pretty sure Toni told Bruce, based on the way Bruce fails to meet his eyes for a few days after the move.

*

**One month later:**

The first warning they get is a rumble, followed by a scream. Then Spider-man punches his way through a ceiling tile and lands in a shower of plaster in the kitchen, right when Steve, Nat and Toni are having a post-sparring snack. Steve doesn't even want to know where Nat was hiding that gun.

“Hey, don't shoot!” Spider-man hides behind the breakfast bar. “Your air conditioning is like something out of Star Trek, it kept trying to kill me.”

“Sometimes that happens if you break in to a highly secured building,” Toni says, sipping her coffee and trying to pretend she didn't pick up a knife just then. “You'd be a great burglar, get a black catsuit and some high heels and-”

“Ms. Stark, I just want you to know I had nothing to do with this, but Eddie told me he has a picture of you and Cap, uh, kissing. On a roof, real long lens but Cap's in costume and, well-”

“Saw that one coming,” says Natasha.

“Okay. Thanks for the heads-up,” Steve interrupts, and goes over to Toni.

“It had to happen sooner or later,” Toni says, smiling one-sided. “It doesn't have to be the fucking Bugle – no offence, kid, and hey, I have an idea. You got your camera?”

“Pre-emptive strike?” Steve asks.

“You in?”

“I'll follow your lead – it's your public image, I just work here.”

“I want to tell Fury,” Natasha says, smiling her terrifying smile.

“Deal. Spider-man, you'd better get at least eighty grand for this.” Toni stands on a table and pulls Steve over. They're almost the same height as Toni's smiling lips touch his and he hears the shutter click.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta and commenters for keeping me motivated to finish my chapters in good time. I was expecting this to be a short fluffy coda, but it ended up the longest and most explicit fic I've ever written. I'm so proud :D.


End file.
